


The Crux of It Is

by proser132



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: And everyone is giggling behind their hands, Aster is Bewildered, Bad Matchmaking, Jack is oblivious, M/M, Matchmaking, Mutually Unrequited, Other, until it's very much requited, what is with me and that trope lately god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:46:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5582734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proser132/pseuds/proser132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to a bizarre encounter at one of North's many parties, Jack figures he's finally learned why Bunny's still single after literally forever. So he sets out to correct that. After all, everyone's a little bit in love with Bunny, so why should this be difficult?<br/>(a.k.a. The One Time Jack Neatly Set Himself Up To Succeed Without Realising It)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> I s2g I will write something short one of these days. Until then, have this four-shot of Jack flailing around like he has any clue what he's doing.

Jack didn't think too much about how he felt about Bunny. It was kind of a no-brainer, really, and didn't bear a lot of thinking about after six decades of friendship. Bunny was... you know, Bunny. Really tall when he bothered to stand up all the way, which wasn't all that often, since he was generally more interested in what was growing in the ground than whatever was above his head. His accent was hilarious and awesome at the same time, and some of the things he would say were priceless. Jack's current favourite was 'face like a dropped pie', which still had him in stitches every time he passed over Ireland and thought of the Leprechaun below.

Bunny was also really grumpy, and kind of had a one-track mind when it came to his holiday – which made pranking a breeze (ha), so long as Jack didn't cause any real trouble. Hell, it had taken the poor guy two days of sniggers from the other Guardians last April before he figured out Jack had drawn a rude face on the back of his head in blue paint. Which, no lie, Jack was still proud of; one-track mind or not, Bunny was crafty (double ha), and it had taken an entire afternoon of really careful flying to accomplish. Not to mention light fingers, because Jack didn't have any brushes or paint of his own, and besides, if he hadn't used Bunny's, half the joke was ruined!

Not to mention the fact that he always had the best insult, a difficult skill to master, and his aim was superb – the one time Jack had actually tempted him into a real snowball fight, he'd nearly gotten _crushed_. He'd won, but only barely, and mostly through cheating (if dropping a _tiiiiiiiiny_ blizzard on someone counted as cheating, which it definitely did not). Even if Bunny was grumpy, he was great with the kids, all of whom loved the Easter Bunny. Now that Jack was on the Guardian's side of the equation, it was heart-warming to watch – a bit of a weird sensation when he spent nearly all of his time about as warm as an ice pop.

Bunny made the flowers bloom in the spring, and made the trees green, and even though his job was basically to chase away Jack's chill, Jack never felt like he was being kicked out. Instead, it was kind of fun, to see where Bunny would push winter back and where he let it linger. Besides, one half of the world entered spring just when the other half was cooling down enough for some early frost, so Jack was never bored. And, best of all, Bunny didn't complain about the snow anymore (or at least, not as much, and not as seriously. It was like how he sniped back and forth with North over Easter and Christmas, which was the best sign of friendship with the overgrown rabbit Jack knew).

So, yeah, of course he was a little bit in love with Bunny. Everyone was, he was pretty sure. How could anyone not be? The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and the world loved E. Aster Bunnymund.

Like he'd said, Jack didn't really think about the implications of that. As far as he was concerned, life was pretty good (or whatever you called what he was now. Undead? Spirit? Who knows.) After all, he had believers who could see him – all over the world, in fact. Anywhere where snow was, you'd hear Jack's names on the kids' tongues. Names, plural, because he got different ones depending which country you happened to drop in on, which was also cool. Plus, he had friends for the first time since he'd been alive, even if they _were_ a little weird sometimes, and he had the world's best job, hands down.

All of that added together made for a pretty sweet unlife (no, that sounded dumb), but he didn't see what about it made the _Groundhog_ take notice, much less ask him out. Since he was – you know, a _ground-hog_ and all.

'Um… thanks,' Jack said, because his mother had raised him with manners, but mostly because he wasn't sure how to respond in the first place. He knew he was staring a little blankly at the squat rodent, but was unsure how to make that stop. 'Uh, look – I'm sorry, have we ever actually talked? Like, ever?'

The Groundhog stared back, little nose twitching the only sign of irritation. 'That's the point of a date, Frost. To get to know each other.'

'Yeah, but I don't even know if you have a name other than the 'Groundhog'.'

The Groundhog puffed up, short brown fur fluffing in stark offence. 'I'm _Phil_. Punxsutawny Phil.'

'Okay,' Jack said slowly. 'Cool. Nice to meet you, Phil –' he thought of the yeti currently avoiding the party like the plague had descended and had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. 'But the answer's still no. You don't even know me.'

The Groundhog sighed, and Jack had never heard a snottier sound in his undeath (no, that was dumb, too.) 'Knew it wasn't worth asking,' he said, tone as condescending as a pre-teen telling a toddler Santa wasn't real. 'The powerful ones are always stuck up.'

'Excuse me?' Jack snapped, scowling now. 'Look, Phil, I don't know what your problem is, but where I'm from, it's nice to know someone first before you start trying to cosy up to them. And what the hell are you talking about, the powerful ones?'

'No one's told you?' the Groundhog asked, sounding delighted. Jack ground his teeth. 'Oh, wow, no wonder you didn't even think about it. Jack – can I call you Jack –?'

'No.'

'Jack,' the Groundhog continued, ignoring him, 'There's only one thing a spirit looks for when we're looking for a partner. And that's power. The way you look, where you came from, who you are, that's all secondary. Power's where it's at. All of you Guardians are great catches, by any spirit's standards.'

'Uh,' Jack said, staring at the pompous rodent. 'What?'

'Like – oh, Bunnymund over there,' the Groundhog said, gesturing with a tiny, stubby paw. They were at one of North's many parties (Jack had learned pretty quickly that there was little North liked so much as throwing a party, no matter the season), and Bunny was on the far side of the room from them, chatting with Sandy. He was crouched down to have a better look at the symbols and be more on Sandy's level, and as always, a quick wash of fondness ran through Jack, because – just because, really. Bunny was great, that was all. Apparently, the Groundhog agreed, because he added, 'Bunnymund's just about the most eligible bachelor there _is_ , here or Underhill or past the Veil or, well, anywhere you can think of.'

'Uh,' Jack repeated, because _duh_ Bunny was the best thing since the first snow, but that couldn't just be because…

'He's a _Guardian_ , and of so much, too. Spring, and Hope, and _Life_ ,' and here Groundhog sighed a little wistfully, which was both sort of annoying and confusing, since Jack had no idea what part of that sentence was supposed to get someone hot under the collar instead of just impressed. 'He's older than Mother Earth, and even she has to bend to him on some things. If someone killed him, everything alive would go with him. He's _insanely_ powerful, and lord, everyone knows it, Jack.'

Jack scowled again, because this guy was getting on his last nerve. 'That's – weird. Really weird. What, you're telling me everyone's after him because he could accidentally kill the entire planet if he fell down the stairs?'

The Groundhog scowled back, before smoothing his expression into some kind of weird thing that it took Jack a minute to realise was supposed to be _seductive_ , or something. 'You just don't get it. Too bad. You'll figure it out eventually, and when you do, the invitation's always open.' Then, he winked, which was just the last straw.

'So, wait, let me get this straight, Phil,' Jack said, putting on his best innocently bewildered face. From the patronisingly kind glance he received, it was working. 'Apparently, all of the Guardians are the hot tamales of the spirit world.'

'Yep.'

'Because we're all more powerful than the average spirit?'

'Uh-huh.'

Jack tilted his head in the way that Tooth called _evil_ and _manipulative_ and all sorts of other untrue (totally true) things. 'And so, with these people as my friends, people I actually know that are apparently hot tamales _and_ up for grabs, I'm supposed to be interested in _you_?'

The resultant fight, which ended with a deep-frozen Groundhog tossed unceremoniously from the front door by a hysterically-laughing Nicholas St. North, would be gossip fodder for _weeks_.

  
  


  
  


So, Jack was right. Everyone was a little bit in love with E. Aster Bunnymund. Too bad it was for all the wrong reasons.

He just couldn't figure it out. How could anyone look at all the cool things Bunny did and was (immortal, wandering warrior scholar who _literally_ shaped the earth, _hello_ ) and think 'Oh, he's powerful, guess I want to bang that?'

It was annoying. It made Jack want to tear his hair out. Pennsylvania spent a week solid under snow in early November, way before the rest of the country, just because it gave Jack a petty pleasure to think of the Groundhog shivering in his hole in the ground. None of the other Guardians could get out of him the story of why, precisely, Jack had suddenly decided he hated the rodent, but he had two pretty strong allies in his dislike. The first was Toothiana, who harboured a deep vein of distaste for him because his teeth were crooked, and he didn't take care of them the way he should. Jack wasn't going to mention that he thought that was kind of a dumb reason to hate someone, mostly because it was always good to have Tooth in your corner. The fairies, it turned out, were actually a goddamned fairy _army_. Which was badass as hell, and awesome to have as a backup.

The second was Bunny, who like Jack was pretty tight-lipped about why he hated the Groundhog (Jack suspected it had to do with how inaccurate the Groundhog tended to be in his prediction of spring, and also that Bunny himself had a lot to do with that inaccuracy). Nevertheless, when North kept bothering Jack about the fight (and when Bunny was present), Bunny would head him off.

Finally, it came to the week after the snow over Pennsylvania finally subsided, midway through November, and Bunny tapped North on the shoulder.

'Leave the larrikin alone about it, Nick,' he said. 'His bizzo what happened, and 'sides, not like the wanker didn't have it coming for one thingo or another. Shouldn't ye be worried about yerself, Chrissy around the corner and all?'

With North sufficiently (and hysterically) distracted, Jack nudged Bunny in the side with his elbow. 'Thanks, Bunny,' he said, once the leftmost ear had dropped in his direction.

The ear and its partner twitched, Bunny glancing away. Jack had figured out pretty early on that most of Bunny's emotions were telegraphed to the world through the tall furry things, and while he definitely didn't know the little language fluently, he was sure they were halfway between flattened in embarrassment and – nope, there they went, flat to his head.

'No dramas, Jacko,' he muttered, still staring avidly off to the side. 'I'm always going to support icing over that tosser.'

Jack laughed, delighted as could be, because that right there – the embarrassment at being thanked for doing something, the _bashfulness_ that hid beneath a layer of gruff grump, was a reason to love Bunny. He didn't know why no one else saw it, how his best friend was still single after all this time. Jack didn't think it was by choice, either; Aster was a closet romantic, judging by half the contents of the fiction section of his library, and so it had to be this weird fixation on power the other spirits had that was keeping him from forming a close relationship with someone.

There had to be someone who didn't care about that bullshit. Someone who was no-nonsense, who would look at him and see all of the cool things that made Aster worth loving.

The thought sat in Jack's head, and he turned it over, looked at it from new angles as he watched North dash back and forth, ordering the yetis into a frenzy and sending the elves scampering underfoot. Jack began to float to avoid the chaos, and kept thinking.

He knew someone like that, he realised, someone who wouldn't hold truck with all of this power = love nonsense. Now he just needed to figure out how to get her and Aster in the same –

The plan came together in his head like a clap of thunder, the way all his best plans and pranks did. This was no prank, though, and he had to fight a grin at how perfectly everything fit in.

'Oi, Jack,' Bunny said, and Jack looked at him; they'd both been absorbed in their own heads, surveying the chaos that was North's Workshop in full swing, and Bunny's ears were up again, tilting this way and that to avoid the tiny remote planes that were swarming past. 'Ye've been me friend for yonks now. I mean, ye don't have to –' the ears twitched again, 'but ye can call me Aster. Ye know Bunny's just a nickname.'

'I know,' Jack replied, still gleeful from how great his plan was. 'It fits you, though.'

'Not actually a rabbit,' Bunny started, but Jack poked him, cutting off the tirade.

'I know that, too. Mostly, though, if I call you Aster, I'm just going to start calling you whatever flower name pops into my head first.'

Bunny's eyebrows rose. 'Didn't think ye knew flowers at all,' he mused. 'Not very wintry of ye, to be true.'

'Duh, I know flowers,' Jack said, rolling his eyes; sometimes, Bunny could be pretty short-sighted, but since that was inevitably a source of hilarity, it really just tended to make Jack laugh. 'Spring comes right after winter, if you remember. I do see them from time to time., especially, oh, in the Warren once or twice –'

Bunny rolled his eyes in obvious imitation and shoved Jack a little. 'Rack off.'

'Plus,' Jack continued, ignoring Bunny magnanimously, 'I remember the Victorians. Ridiculously detailed about their flowers – made up a whole language, basically.'

'I remember,' Bunny said, voice gone fond and amused in a way that made Jack's smile grow whenever he heard it. 'Wasn't there a flower that said 'I despise ye'?'

'All I can think of is monkshood,' Jack admitted, racking his brain. 'Hatred. Maybe foxglove? No, wait, that one was falsehoods.'

'Insincerity,' Bunny corrected, but looked impressed despite himself.

'Right,' Jack said, snapping his fingers and trying to not preen too obviously. 'Well, maybe I should send the Groundhog a bouquet of monkshood.' He flashed Bunny a wicked grin. 'Think he'd eat it?'

'Monkshood's poisonous, Frostbite,' Bunny admonished, but his ears were in a tense tilt that meant he was trying not to laugh.

'Oh, I know,' Jack replied, and winked.

Bunny gave in, laughing as his ears relaxed to either side, and it drew North's attention on them again. Jack stayed a few minutes more, but his chest was sort of tight, the way it got around Bunny sometimes, and the only way it disappeared was if Jack went away and found a small town that looked like it deserved a snow day.

  
  


  
  


It hadn't taken Jack all that long after joining up with the Guardians to figure out that Bunny was the loneliest of the bunch of them. He was pretty proud of how far they'd all come in the last few decades, if he did say so himself; they'd all spent a ridiculous amount of time all by themselves for a group of of people who supposedly worked together. But North had his yetis and his elves, and Tooth her fairies (her fairy _army_ , which was still the greatest thing Jack had ever heard of). And Sandy spent all of his time bringing dreams to sleeping children, so he was rarely truly alone.

Bunny, though, spent most of the year in his Warren alone, except for the egg-shaped stone guards (who couldn't talk) and the plants (that also, as far as Jack knew, couldn't talk). Jack thought that level of loneliness sounded pretty unacceptable, to be frank. He understood wanting time to himself (especially after becoming a Guardian), but Bunny apparently went _months_ without talking to anyone at all.

That sounded way too close to Jack's first three hundred years as a spirit for comfort, and – well. Bunny was older than the _planet_. How many cumulative years had he spent alone? Just the idea of the number boggled Jack's brain.

The first few times Jack tried to get Bunny out of the Warren went awfully. It had been only a couple of years after Pitch's grand last stand, and Bunny had actually barred him from the Warren for a year after his third attempt; Jack hadn't been able to tell if it was because Bunny was annoyed at the interruptions or genuinely angry that Jack was there, but Jack was a persistent sort. He patiently waited through that year (most people didn't know Jack was patient at all, but hey, he'd waited three hundred years to find out who he was, he could wait a year to have another crack at getting Bunny out of his house) and tried again the day after the ban was lifted.

'What on me good green earth is yer _problem_ , Frost?!' Bunny had roared when Jack asked if he'd like to go anywhere. 'Why are ye bothering me?!'

'I don't have a problem,' Jack had replied as calmly as he could – Bunny was the kind of person who responded best to being straightforward and obvious. 'Thought it would be nice if you'd come hang out with me, because neither of us are busy. If you really hate the idea, though, and aren't just being a pain in my ass about it, then I won't ask again.'

Bunny had stared at him for a long moment, long ears flicking back and forth. Jack hadn't known it at the time, but later, when he'd thought about it (after a few years of knowing Bunny better, anyway) he thought it was between confusion and mortification.

'What?' Jack had asked, then clueless.

'… fine. Where did ye want to go?'

Jack hadn't bothered questioning the abrupt change of heart, because he was too busy doing an internal victory dance that got a little external, judging from Bunny's snort of laughter.

Over time, it got easier to drag Bunny out of his Warren, and now, after six decades of friendship, Jack could reliably count on one free trip with Bunny about once a week, no questions asked. Any more than that might get some grumbling, but the few times Jack had been too swamped to do it, Bunny had actually sought him out, which was awesome.

Mostly, they explored. Bunny knew some of the coolest places on Earth, things that looked so strange and unearthly that Jack sometimes had trouble believing they were still on the planet, but Jack had the advantage when it came to current or upcoming things, thanks to the fact that he spent most of his time topside. He loved to rub it in Bunny's face whenever he could, but now he planned to take advantage of it.

After all, Bunny loved plants, and Greece had just opened a new national arboretum, with trees from all over the world gathered in one place. Which, while it had nothing on the Warren, was still filled with some cool specimens. And if Jack had gone scouting out (well, visiting the place with an invitation from one of the inhabitants, but _still_ ), and so knew that one of his friends had come to the arboretum with the rest of her grove, well, there was no reason to tell Bunny beforehand.

Not that Ismene knew he was coming either, but, hey. He was Jack Frost. Expecting the unexpected was kind of the tag-line to every one of his friendships.

'How ye going, Frostbite?' Bunny called cheerfully as Jack flew into the Warren. Underground and yet not at the same time, it was easy to find a hole to the sky to wiggle through (at least, if you were recognised by the wards. It had taken almost two decades for Jack to realise how big a sign of trust that was, and when he had, he'd spent a week abusing it shamelessly before Bunny got him to stop).

Bunny was, as per usual, gardening – wrist deep in a bed of brilliantly purple petunias. That was no surprise whatsoever; Jack sometimes wondered when he found time to sleep, since it seemed like whenever he wasn't painting eggs or making chocolate, he was somewhere in his fields. Of course, it wasn't like Jack was annoyed by it. Gardening was to Bunny what making storms was to Jack – as natural as flying (or running, in Bunny's case). The Warren flourished under his care, bursting with life and singing colour.

Jack loved winter (which, of course he would, it was the best season out of all of them), but he'd be lying through his straight white teeth if he said he didn't love the Warren, too, with its perpetual spring and flowers. It was _Bunny_ , and Bunny was the Warren. Of course Jack loved it.

'Morning, Cottontail,' Jack answered, alighting on the grass and reining in his frost so that it wouldn't spill past the boundaries of his body, the way it always wanted to do when he touched plants. 'Got an hour or two?'

'For ye? Always,' Bunny replied, sitting back and casting a smile over his petunias before looking at Jack, curiosity in the way his ears cocked forward. 'What did ye need?'

'They opened a new national arboretum in Greece,' Jack said, tossing his staff from one hand to the other. 'Seemed like it might be up your alley – they've got the seedlings from the meta-sequoia, the Chinese one that they managed to get to sprout properly? And, opening day was last month, so there shouldn't be a ton of kids.'

Bunny felt weird about being seen by kids outside of Easter for all that he loved them, and Jack got it, sort of; after all, no one was really looking for Jack Frost in the middle of July in the northern hemisphere, so he tended to stay south of the Equator then. But once Bunny got over some of that shyness (and Jack thought the shyness was endearing as hell; like any kid _wouldn't_ get excited about seeing Bunny no matter what month it was), he tended to relax, and if a kid came up, Jack could handle it.

Bunny's smile flashed, directed at Jack this time instead of the petunias, and the force of it crinkled his green eyes and scrunched up his nose. Jack grinned back, because just _wow_. 'Sounds bonzer, Jacko,' he said. 'Give me a mo', and I'll have these flowers all set for the day.'

'Cool,' Jack said, and took a crouching perch on the crook of his staff to watch with a content feeling.

Bunny shuffled some of the flowers around, humming under his breath, rearranging them so each got the right amount of sun and water, removing dead petals with a gentle paw, and generally fussing. Jack couldn't keep his smile in; Bunny cared so much about these flowers, and gave every ounce of that care over with no reservations. Jack loved it.

'Alright, she'll be apples 'til I get back,' Bunny said, standing at last. He really was very tall, when he stood up to his full height, of an eye level with Jack even though Jack was crouched atop his staff. Jack grinned and reached down to rest his palm on the knot at the base of the crook before swinging fluidly down to stand on the ground again. Now he had to look up at Bunny, and he slung his staff idly over his shoulder.

'Want to meet me there?'

Bunny rolled his eyes and pointed out very patiently, 'Got no idea where I'm going.'

'Then open the way and I'll show you,' Jack replied, poking Bunny with the end of his staff, and laughing when Bunny yelped at the tiny curl of frost that spread up his side.

Bunny swatted him, and opened one of his tunnels with a few taps of his foot. Jack dropped into the wide space, having gotten used to the tunnels years past. If it was just some kind of muddy hole in the ground, he'd probably hate it, but sunlight and breezes would creep in from holes to the surface, and there were green things and flowers growing from the rock. It was actually a pretty neat way to get around.

The Wind acting as his compass, Jack led the way through the tunnels towards Greece at top speed, mostly because he wanted to see if he could tempt Bunny into a race. Today Bunny didn't take the bait, seemingly fine with keeping pace, and Jack felt a brief flare of disappointment before the rest of his brain reminded him that meant Bunny was sticking pretty close to Jack's side, which was always a plus.

They came out of the earth just outside the arboretum's glass walls. It was cloudy over Greece, a bit chillier now that it was late November, but pretty balmy compared to places up north, so Jack figured Bunny was fine. He certainly didn't look cold, though he did seem pretty interested in the trees he could see through the glass.

Jack led the way around to the entrance, ducking past the ticket taker (there were definite bonuses to being unseen by adults, he'd learned as the years went on, and now that he could be seen by kids, it had lost most of the sting it had carried for hundreds of years).

A few kids were present with their families, but when they looked over, little bewildered faces seeking out the reason behind the Easter Bunny's appearance, Jack took to the air with a little curl of wintry Wind and held a finger to his lips. The few kids (two boys, three girls, and a sixth child that Jack couldn't decide was either and so settled with neither and a mental shrug) nodded excitedly at the prospect of the secret, and Jack grinned. Kids loved secrets, he'd found, and were more than happy to keep them for a short while, at least.

When he looked back to Bunny, he was gifted with an exasperated but pleased shake of the head and brief cuff to the shoulder. His attention on Jack didn't last long, as he was soon lost to examining the trees, and Jack (pretty subtly, in his opinion) slowly made their way to the grove of ancient olive trees, transplanted here when their original home was threatened by an apartment building's expansion.

'Hello, Jack Frost,' a voice said, soft and faintly musical, and a woman stepped ghostlike from the tree in the centre before solidifying.

Bunny startled, ears coming up in surprise, but Jack grinned; Ismene had that effect on people. Taller than any of her sisters, she was striking even amongst the dryads, who were famously beautiful. Her skin was the same colour as the olive wood she was all but made from, her eyes glittered golden beneath the twisting branches that made up her hair, and she wore a long, flowing robe of stitched together fallen leaves.

'Hi, Ismene,' he said, and waved, not leaving Bunny's side. 'How are you?'

'Well,' she answered, inclining her head gracefully. They'd met when Jack had frozen over a creek near her grove and was hiding from the river god that wanted his head, back in – nineteen twenty something, he wasn't sure. She'd hidden him in her branches, understanding, and they'd been acquaintances ever since. It had become true friendship in the last twenty years or so, though, and Jack was glad to know her. 'Thank you for asking,' she continued, and smiled in her charming, austere way. 'They are reverent of their trees, here. It is refreshing.'

'That's good to hear,' Jack said; when last they'd spoke, she'd only been here a few days, and was still uncertain as to how well her tree would be treated.

Ismene turned from Jack at last, her calm golden gaze settling on Bunny. 'Hello,' she said, and Jack was pleased to note that she didn't sound – awed, or whatever. Not the way the Groundhog had sounded, at least. 'It is a pleasure to meet you at last, E. Aster Bunnymund.'

'Likewise,' Bunny replied. His voice was flawlessly polite, but Jack knew that angle of ear – discomfort. It showed up whenever Tooth started ranting about the high sugar content of chocolate, too. 'Er – it was Ismene, yeah?'

'Yes,' she said, looking pleased he'd caught it. 'We've heard about you quite a bit here. I remember the springs you would bring when the gods still walked the earth. Even Persephone was jealous of your flowers.'

'Thank ye,' Bunny said, flattered ears twitching, and Jack tilted his head away, trying to hide his smile.

'Jack talks about you often,' Ismene added, and Bunny looked at her more intently, as Jack saw when he glanced back over.

'Good things, I hope.'

'Some of them,' Jack said, and gave up on keeping his smile hidden. 'Any more than that and I'd be lying, though.'

'Oi,' Bunny barked at him, elbowing him hard. 'I'm not that bad.'

'Definitely not,' Jack agreed innocently, and left Bunny blinking as he turned back to Ismene. _Time to let these two talk by themselves_ , he thought gleefully, and asked, 'Are any of your sisters around?'

'We're always around, Jack!' called one of the others – Desdemona, he thought – and a chorus of laughter followed.

Bunny shuffled a bit nearer to Jack as more dryads, ten in all, spilled out of their trees. 'How did ye meet all of them, Frostbite?' he asked under his breath, sounding a little apprehensive.

'You make friends when you leave the house, Bun-bun,' Jack answered teasingly, and laughed at the look Bunny shot him. 'You talk to Ismene, she's calmer. I'll handle them – they're good people.'

'Didn't say they aren't,' Bunny huffed, but let Jack steer him towards Ismene, who was watching with poorly concealed amusement.

The sisters were, as ever, happy to see him (unaware as they were that he'd been to visit only a month past), and he kept them as distracted as he could whilst Bunny got into an involved discussion with Ismene about the other trees in the arboretum. Jack watched covertly with a glee that felt like light in his skin. He'd known it would go well.

Of course, that did leave him with ten of the other dryads to deal with, and he'd never been as fond of them as he was of their more mature, interesting sister.

'Oh, Jack,' one of the sisters said (Chrysanthe, maybe?), and slung an arm over his shoulder with a familiarity that kind of annoyed Jack. 'You barely come to Greece anymore! I remember when we couldn't get _rid_ of you!'

There was some laughter at this, and it was laughter Jack could join in with honestly. 'That's because you guys took ages to figure out how I was pranking you,' he teased. 'Wasn't as fun once you could predict my every move.'

'Are you calling us boring, Jack Frost?' another sister, Philomena, declared in only a half-joking tone, and Jack fought to not roll his eyes. She'd always been especially sensitive to perceived slights.

'No way,' he said instead, and flicked her in the arm. 'I just need time to come up with some new tricks.'

'You better,' she declared haughtily, and settled right against his left side. Jack couldn't help but laugh a little when she poked one of his ribs.

'Or what,' he asked, frowning as seriously as he could at the moment, 'you'll turn me into a tree?'

'You would make a terrible tree,' Desdemona declared, and there was another chorus of laughter.

'Hey, Frostbite,' Bunny said, striding over, and Jack de-tangled himself from the dryads hastily, because that? That was not a happy-Bunny voice.

'What's up?'

'I'm going to get headed,' he said, and his ears were rigid, tilted back and out. Jack was bewildered – what had gone wrong?

'Okay, give me a second.'

'No, don't ye worry.' Bunny sounded like he was gritting his teeth. 'I'll see ye later.'

'Uh, no,' Jack frowned. 'Seriously, one second. Later, guys!'

'Come back soon!' Chrysanthe said, and Jack felt a shiver of discomfort go down his spine, because she sounded like she meant _him_ , and probably not for a friendly visit. Which was just _no_.

'Sure!' Jack lied with a bright chirp, smiling falsely, and with a wave to the faintly smiling Ismene ( _what happened there?_ ), began to chivvy Bunny from the arboretum. Something had gone funny, and Jack didn't like that. They ducked out into the cloudy day, and almost instantly, Bunny's ears began to relax, at least until Jack spoke again. 'Sorry, Cottontail,' he said carefully. 'They can be a bit much if you aren't used to them.'

'Are they always so…' Bunny waved a paw a bit vaguely, and Jack tilted his head. 'Touchy,' Bunny finished.

'Sometimes,' Jack shrugged. Maybe Ismene had patted Bunny one too many times – she wasn't as grabby as her sisters, who liked to drape themselves over whoever was the object of their attention at the moment, but she _did_ have a habit of putting her hands on shoulders and forearms and elbows when she talked. She was unusually reserved for a dryad – what Jack had hoped would be one of her advantages. Damn it. 'Ismene's not like that, normally,' Jack added, then grinned. 'Guess she liked you, then!'

'What?' Bunny said, staring at Jack like he'd grown a second head. 'No, she was fine.'

Jack felt his grin become a frown once more. 'Then what's wrong?'

Bunny flinched. 'Nothing's wrong, Frostbite,' he huffed. 'Got to see to me petunias. I'll see ye later.'

Before Jack could insist on an answer, Bunny opened a tunnel below himself and dropped out of sight, closing it almost instantaneously.

Jack stared at the flower left behind – a delicately lilac aster – and wondered what the fuck had just happened. Before that thought became verbal (there were kids around, after all, and he had an image to maintain now), he took to the air and aimed himself north-west, towards the Italian Alps. He felt the sudden need to make a quick blizzard.

 


	2. Traveller

So the dryads were a no, Jack guessed. Ismene had seemed like her usual calm self, but something had clearly gotten on Bunny's nerves. Which sucked, because Ismene was awesome and Jack wished they'd at least gotten on as friends or something (they had seemed to get along in the beginning, damn it), but he wasn't going to try that route a second time.

Matchmaking was difficult business, Jack was realising, but it was going to be worth it in the end. If Bunny had someone around, then maybe he'd be less grumpy, and Jack honestly couldn't think of a reason why having a happier Bunny could possibly be a bad thing. Sure, he might see Bunny less, because he'd be with someone else for a big chunk of the time, but that was okay. It wasn't like Bunny would stop being his friend, after all, and hey, if Bunny had someone, there'd be two people to prank in the Warren. Win-win all around, in Jack's opinion.

At the moment he was floating idly over Chicago, scattering a bit of snow here and there. December was a few days old, and Jack was looking forward to giving as many places as possible a white Christmas. Nick appreciated it quite a bit, from what he could tell, and with the world having finally gotten the hang of the whole global-warming thing (reduced emissions and air-scrubbing, from what Jack could tell, had repaired a lot of the damage, and now there was some kind of atmosphere regulation that had been put in place by a coalition of the world's countries and kept to pretty strictly) he didn't have to worry about snow looking suspicious, the way it kind of did during the 2030s. Ugh. The 2030s. Barely able to make it snow _anywhere_ without being scolded by the other Guardians for confusing the poor weathermen.

Of course, his good mood wasn't long lasting, and he sighed as he drifted over the brightly lit down-town. He found it really hard to stay cheerful whenever Bunny was annoyed with him – and Bunny was _definitely_ annoyed, no doubt about it. Jack still had no idea what had gone wrong, but Bunny as avoiding him now, and when he'd stopped by the Warren a few days after the whole fiasco, he couldn't find him anywhere. Which hurt, to be plain. It had been a long time since Bunny had avoided him.

The Wind tugged at him gently, pulling him out over the lake, and he followed without complaint, part of him glad to leave behind the bright, cheerful lights. He just didn't understand how he was meant to apologise if he a) didn't know what he'd done and b) couldn't find the guy he was supposed to apologise to.

He dropped down, just out of range of the lake swells, and followed the water north. If, _maybe_ , a bit more than the scattering of snow he'd planned to drop on Chicago fell in his wake, well, that was just something else he'd messed up lately.

Moving steadily north-east now, he found himself over the rolling cornfields of southern Michigan. He shook his head, clearing some of the moody fog; America was getting boring, he decided. Maybe he'd go make trouble in Europe for a little while – maybe the lights of Paris through thick snow would be less grating than Chicago's.

'Oi, Frostbite!'

Jack looked down, startled, and saw Bunny standing at the edge of a field, squinting up at him; his figure was small, and it must have been a heck of a holler to reach Jack, because he thought he was edging on a thousand feet in the air. He frowned ( _when did I drifted that far up?_ ) but lost the frown in a second, because _Bunny was here_. That made Jack's job a little easier.

He tumbled down to land gracefully in front of Bunny, or as gracefully as he could manage with the sudden bout of nerves in his stomach; he didn't stumble at least, so point to him.

'What's up, Bunny?' he asked casually. From the flick of his ears, Bunny wasn't buying it.

'Wondered where ye'd gotten to,' he said. 'Haven't seen ye in two weeks.'

Jack frowned again – that wasn't _his_ fault. 'I tried to find you – you weren't home.'

'The googs told me,' Bunny agreed, then lifted his eyebrows. 'That was ten days ago.'

'Huh,' Jack muttered, because he hadn't realised he'd been sulking quite that long. 'Sorry, Bun-bun. Got caught up in the season.'

'I can tell,' Bunny replied, ears flicking forward as he grinned. 'Seems Chicago just got a surprise foot of snow in the last hour; the anklebiters are looking forward to at least two days free from school.'

Jack felt his face heat up, which was weird, since he hadn't blushed in – jeez, ages. He wasn't even sure he could remember the last time he'd done it, and he'd wondered if a kind-of-sort-of-corpse even _could_ blush. Clearly he'd just not found something embarrassing enough until now. 'Sorry,' Jack said, dragging the end of his staff through the snow at his feet. 'My head was – you know, lots of thoughts and stuff.'

'Thought ye were mad at me,' Bunny chuckled, but his ears had flicked back a bit, a quick flinch of nervousness.

'What? I thought _you_ were mad at _me_!' Jack exclaimed, and Bunny frowned.

'Now, why'd I be mad at ye?' A pause, then with a suspicious tone, 'If ye did something to me Warren again –'

'No, I didn't,' Jack cut off hastily, waving his staff around a bit manically, judging from the way Bunny ducked back. 'And I thought you were still mad about the dryads.'

Bunny's ears definitely tucked themselves back now, and Jack thought there might actually be a hint of red in the short fur of Bunny's nose. 'I wasn't mad at ye, Jack,' he said at last, shuffling from foot to foot like a nervous – well, rabbit. 'Just – not really mad at all. Sorry I got stroppy with ye.'

Jack still didn't get it, but _ohthankgod_ , Bunny wasn't mad. He'd take it. 'Okay. You don't have to worry though, I won't take you back there.'

'It wasn't bad as all that,' Bunny began, but Jack shook his head.

'No, it's cool. You don't have to explain. Like I said,' and now Jack gave him what felt like the first bright smile he'd had since they'd left Greece, 'they can be a bit much if you aren't used to them. I'd rather have you comfortable than jumpy, so don't worry about it.'

He'd expected his words to relax Bunny, but instead, they seemed to – shake him up, a bit, like he hadn't expected that kind of thing. Which was dumb, seeing as Jack was his friend, so of _course_ he'd prefer him to be happy. Giant weirdo. 'So,' he said after a brief pause, 'Were you looking for me for something specific?'

'No, I just wanted to check on ye. I'm not keeping ye, am I?'

'I was about to go to Paris,' Jack said with a non-committal shrug. 'So nope. I'm getting kind of bored around here, thought I'd change it up.'

'Would ye like some company?'

Jack blinked at that. 'Uh, sure? I don't mind.'

'Ace,' Bunny said, and his ears relaxed a bit. 'I'll meet ye by the Rue d'Eglise.'

'You got it, Bun-bun,' Jack said with a grin and a mental shrug – sure, it was rare for Bunny to agree to go into a snowstorm (even if the snowstorm hadn't been made yet), but Jack figured it was his way of trying to apologise. Bunny wasn't the best with apologies – it had taken him almost two decades to figure out that Jack needed it spelled out word for word. He did okay now, but he still didn't feel like he'd apologised properly until he'd done something to make up for it.

It was endearing. Everything about Bunny was endearing, even the frustrating stuff. Sure, they got into fights sometimes, but Jack had no idea why everyone else had so much trouble with the whole being-in-love-business. Seemed like the easiest thing in the world to him – make someone happy when you can, let them make you happy when they can, and when you fight, make up. Sure, it wasn't a two way street, but that didn't bother Jack. Not much bothered him these days, unless it was Bunny disappearing for two weeks. That sucked.

Jack waved as Bunny dropped down into the tunnel that opened beneath him before rising into the air again. The Wind came and took him up, whistling cheerfully at his change in mood, and they sped east, shooting over land, sea, land again.

Soon, he was over France, and he spin a quick flurry around the Eiffel Tower to annoy the tourists (and give a little warning of what was to come) before soaring over to the Rue d'Eglise and perching atop a street-lamp.

Bunny popped up a few minutes later, and Jack tossed the snowball he'd made to pass the time. It struck Bunny on the shoulder, who yelped in surprise before scowling.

'Don't ye know it's rude to ambush a bloke,' he asked, brushing the snow off his shoulder huffily, 'and not give him any ammo to retaliate?'

Jack grinned brightly (jotting down a mental point beside his eternal tally of Bunny v. Jack for not making the snowball from his Joy snow) and gestured to the clear street. 'Well, see,' he said, falsely apologetic, 'We'd need snow for that, and I just don't see any. Sorry, Bunny.'

'Haha, Frostbite. Are ye gonna give me a go at ye, or are ye going to yabber all night?'

Jack sighed theatrically and spun around before swinging down, knees hooked securely over the street-lamp's pole. He eyed Bunny, who managed to look impressively unimpressed for all that he was upside down. 'I mean, if you insist,' he said, and twisted his grip on his staff so that the crook was pointed up past his knees, towards the sky.

Like it had been waiting for the gesture (which it hadn't, as Jack had long ago figured out how to do most of his magic through his body instead of his staff) snow began to flake down, faintly at first and then thicker, beginning to stick to the pavement. Jack looked back at Bunny and stuck out his tongue, both to be rude and to catch one of the snowflakes.

Bunny snorted, but looked satisfied. Jack hooked the crook of his staff around the pole he hung from, and crossed his arms behind his head, humming. 'Come on, then,' he challenged. 'One free shot before I destroy you.'

'Ye cheated last time,' Bunny replied, already crouching to scrape up a snowball.

Jack swung a bit. 'Did not,' he disagreed lazily, closing his eyes. 'You just have to accept that I have the tactical advantage, Bun-bun, and that's that.'

'Is that the code for cheating, now?'

'Wouldn't know, because I'm not a cheater,' Jack sang at him, swinging again.

'Well, then, I'll just have to overcome me handicap of not being a tosser.'

'Rude!' Jack said, opening his eyes – just in time for a massive snowball, easily the size of his head, to crash into his face.

Clearly he'd made it snow harder than he'd thought, because Bunny shouldn't have had the time to gather that much snow. The blow knocked Jack right off the lamp, and he was saved from a squashed face by the Wind at the last minute. He twisted onto his back, thumping gently to the ground, and wiped snow out of his eyes.

'Okay,' he said, and grinned up at Bunny. 'It's _on._ '

He leapt up and caught his staff in the middle, swinging back up with it acting like a support, and crouched atop the lamp once more. The snow was flying thick, and he spun a snowball out of the snow on the lamp's cap and flicked it at Bunny's middle.

Bunny dropped into a tunnel and reappeared behind him, already armed, and Jack laughed, jumping out of the way of his first shot. 'Now who's cheating?'

'Taking advantage of a tactical advantage,' Bunny replied, already tossing again. Jack stood fully and spun up into the air, gathering snow as it fell and returning fire. Immediately after letting go, he was making a second, and dive-bombed Bunny with it, who rolled under the shot before leaping atop the nearest free street-lamp and from there onto a roof of one of the churches.

'You know you can't get the high ground!' Jack called, chasing him and throwing a third snowball..

'Who needs high ground when ye've got cover?' Bunny shouted back, ducking behind one of the Gothic spires, Jack's shot splattering uselessly against the stone. 'Ye're losing yer touch, Jacko!'

Jack's response was a beautifully aimed snowball to Bunny's nose, and from there, it was _war_.

Jack won – again – but it was a close thing – again. This time, he didn't even have to drop a snowstorm on Bunny, though, so take _that_.

The final count when they had to stop because the snow was flying so thick they practically couldn't see (so Jack had gone a _liiiitle_ overboard with the original storm, sue him) was four points Bunny, five points Jack. Bunny was still loudly protesting the last point when they ducked under the awning of a café, long abandoned for the night, and Jack couldn't help but laugh at him.

'No, look,' he said, catching Bunny by the arm and brushing snow off his elbow. 'I got you, and you can't deny it.'

'There's snow everywhere, Frostbite,' Bunny replied flatly, and pointedly brushed snow off his other elbow. 'It's a tie, and ye know it.'

'I totally got you, and you're just a liar,' Jack singsonged, taking a seat atop one of the little tables. He idly knocked the crook of his staff against the metal of the next table over, sending frost curling over the ironwork, and with a bit of concentration, made the curls shape themselves into a pretty passable imitation of the store-front across the avenue.

'I am no such thing, and ye're just a sore loser.' Bunny sat in the chair next to the table, and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. Jack didn't stare, because he'd seen it a million times, but he did sneak a glance. Or two. It wasn't his fault that Bunny was so interesting to look at, strange and beloved and handsome in a way that didn't make a lot of sense to Jack but was pretty undeniable.

And plus, he could totally look if he wanted; turned out, guys liking guys had been a thing forever, which first of all: awesome, second of all: ha, knew it. Not that the concept had ever really bothered him (okay, maybe a little when he was alive, but that one hadn't been on him, it had been on all the bullshit people said about it, and he dared anyone to come to terms with liking people regardless of gender when you were told you'd burn forever if you did.) Jack just liked the way certain people looked, and Bunny? Bunny was a looker, definitely.

Jack rolled his eyes at Bunny's complaining, and kicked his feet idly over the ground; his toes just brushed the thin layer of snow that the Wind blew in, and he drew swirling patterns below, exposing the flagstone beneath. Outside, through the _tiiiiiiiny_ bit of a white-out, the lights of street-lamps and shops and cars, few though they were, glowed warmly. Jack smiled. One of these days, he was finally going to convince Bunny that the Wind wouldn't drop him, and he'd finally show him a city from the air, glittering through all the snow.

'Ye alright there?'

Jack looked over to find Bunny watching him with a serious expression. 'I'm cool,' he said, and flashed a bright grin. 'Generally am, though.' He wiggled his fingers and eyebrows at the same time, indicating the whole 'practically made of ice' thing.

Bunny rolled his eyes and reached out, flicking him in the shoulder with a furry finger. 'Ye're a brat,' he said, but it sounded really fond, which was backed up by the gentle way his ears were tilted back and in, so unlike the way he'd flatten them when embarrassed.

'You're a grumpy old man, Bunny,' Jack returned, expecting a grin, but receiving a frown, instead.

'Ye know,' Bunny said slowly, 'I really would like it if ye called me Aster.'

Jack tilted his head. It seemed like a little thing to him, but maybe to Bunny – Aster, it was a big deal? 'Sure, but why?'

'It's me name,' B – Aster snorted. 'Do I need a reason to ask ye to call me by me name?'

'No one else does.'

The ears tightened down a bit, closer to apprehension now. 'I know. I prefer it that way.'

Well, then. 'Okay,' Jack said, because clearly Aster didn't want to talk about it. 'You've got it, Aster.'

Aster smiled again, and the ears relaxed. Jack kind of felt like he had just been handed something really really fragile, and asked to take care of it. Maybe he had.

'I'm still going to call you random flowers, though.'

'I reckoned.'

  
  


  
  


Christmas came and went with another of North's parties the night after, and Jack had enjoyed it, sort of. There'd been a lot of interesting people, for certain, and he'd never met Durga before (though, as she was the Hindi goddess of _war_ , he should have been a little less surprised to find that she and North were besties. It was, however, freaking hilarious.) Bun – Aster hadn't been there, though, which sort of threw a pall on the whole thing, in Jack's opinion.

Aster made parties fun, in Jack's experience. He could always be counted on to know who knew which spirit, and why Quan Yin was glaring the holy hell out of a _long_ dragon on the other side of the room. He had the best stories, because they tended to be painfully embarrassing for the subject (Jack's favourite kind, so long as they weren't about _him_ ), and could be relied on as an excuse to bow out early when the crowd and the noise got a little too much for Jack's head.

With Aster's absence, though, Jack had been cornered by Chrysanthe again, and spent an awkward hour and a half trying to clumsily redirect her from her flirting efforts before he was saved by Tooth.

'Sorry, sorry!' Tooth had laughed, bumping into Chrysanthe as though she were tipsy. 'I have to steal Jack away – Guardian business, I'm afraid, so sorry –'

Chrysanthe had huffed and stalked off, at last thwarted, and Jack sucked in a breath of free air. 'Thanks, Tooth,' he'd said, grinning at her in relief.

'No trouble at all, dear – we've all been there,' Tooth said with a sympathetic smile and a pat to his arm. 'Always happy to help a friend! Come on, Sandy's waiting for us.'

'Does this happen – you know, often?' Jack asked, probing for information as she led him over to the corner where Sandy was standing, holding punch cups and wearing a mock-serious expression. Jack was pretty sure all of this effort was to make it look like 'Guardian business', and ward off interrupters, which had him grinning again – weird sometimes or not, his friends were strategic _geniuses_. Genii. Whatever.

'Oh, all the time,' Tooth replied airily. 'Occupational hazard, you know. A lot of the less powerful spirits are in constant political competition with each other – for believers if they need them, for control over this or that aspect… It gets quite tiring, and they all seem to think having a powerful spirit as a partner would make it easier. I'm surprised it took you _this_ long to start having trouble with it!' She shook her head as they came up on Sandy at last, having had to detour around a gaggle of spirits who were squabbling around a plate of gingerbread like they needed the cookies to survive. 'Bunny gets the worst of it, though.'

'I've heard,' Jack said, involuntarily scowling at the thought of the Groundhog.

Tooth paused, and Sandy tilted his head, not even bothering to sign his question. 'So _that's_ why you froze him,' she said, proving that she totally _did_ have telepathy or something, no matter what she said. 'Was it you or Bunny he made the move on?'

'Me,' Jack admitted easily, but something about her sentence confused him. 'Why would I do that if he hit on Aster? He can take care of himself.'

Tooth's feathers bounced up in surprise before settling back down again, a look of pity coming over her face. 'Oh, Jack, you don't have to pretend to us,' she said in a soothing voice that made no sense, and patted his arm. Jack stared at her, but took the punch cup Sandy was holding out to him (North's yetis made awesome punch.)

'I'm not pretending,' he said slowly, and took a sip. 'The Groundhog really _did_ hit on me.'

Sandy's eyebrows rose – clearly he hadn't heard as much of the conversation as Jack had thought – and began to sign a question. Tooth cut him off with a flapping hand. 'Not about that,' she said, then leaned forward conspiratorially. 'About your feelings for _Bunny_.'

'Oh, that,' Jack said, and shrugged. 'Still not sure why that means I'd deep-freeze the Groundhog for saying something. Aster would probably just fill his den with stinging nettle, or something.' Jack snickered at the mental image, but paused when he saw Tooth eyeing him strangely. 'What?'

'Are you okay?'

'I'm great, now that you've got Chrysanthe off my back. Why wouldn't I be?'

Sandy signed something quick at Tooth, who shook her head in confusion, before rolling his eyes and facing Jack. A snowflake, a tear-drop, and an aster flicked to life above his head, golden sand twitching weirdly.

'Why would I be sad about Aster?' Jack replied, and then realised that the weird way Sandy's dreamsand was moving was because he was trying not to laugh.

'Well,' Tooth broke in again, buzzing with anticipation, 'I thought you were –' she dropped her voice, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear – 'in love with him.'

'Is that a bad thing?' Jack asked, drinking more punch and taking a cookie from the silently-laughing Sandy. He sent Sandy a wink, who puffed out sand in response. Clearly Sandy got it. 'Kind of an awesome thing, so far,' he added, looking back to Tooth.

Her eyes widened so quickly it probably hurt. 'Oh, my goodness – are you two together? And you didn't tell me!?'

'Uh, no,' Jack said, and took another cookie. 'Aster's not into me that way. I spend enough time with the guy to have noticed that by now, I think.'

Tooth leaned back and traded a glance with Sandy that was bewildered on her part and mysterious on Sandy's, which made Jack wonder if Sandy really got it after all. 'Tooth, it's not that weird, is it? Everyone's a little bit in love with Aster.'

'What?!' she yelped, and looked flabbergasted. It was quick, but Jack didn't miss the way her eyes darted to North – or, rather, the tall, many-armed woman he was speaking to. Huh. 'No, they're not!'

Sandy, looking like he was back to being on Jack's side again, held his forefinger and thumb apart a smidge, and Jack couldn't help the little laugh that came out.

'I'm not! And you're not, are you Sandy?' This last was said with some anxiety, as if she was suddenly worried that she didn't know Sandy at all.

Sandy shook his head and shrugged before signing an incomprehensible series of symbols that included the symbol for gold, a long period of time, and something that looked kind of like the symbol for friend overlaid with the symbol for brother – or maybe cousin, Jack wasn't sure. It looked like Sandy was saying something along the lines of 'I've known him wayyyyy too long' which, while Jack could understand that on Sandy's part (not to mention Sandy was a _star_ , so he wasn't even sure Sandy got interested in people the same way others did), Jack would never agree with. He could know Aster for the next billion years and never get tired of him.

'And you're not jealous, that everyone else loves him?' Tooth pressed wonderingly. 'Or sad that he – doesn't love you? You're not upset at all?'

'What do I have to be sad about?' Jack asked, a bit of a confusion headache settling in behind his eyes. 'And why would I be jealous? The Ground-hog's a prick –' nods from both Tooth and Sandy that looked automatic, making Jack smile. 'So, not really someone I'd see Aster shacking up with. Besides, I could never be mad about someone making Aster happy.'

'Don't you want to make him happy yourself?'

'Duh, I already do,' Jack replied, because now he thought he knew what she was getting at. 'Tooth, I hang out with him all the time. We go off and do cool things and talk, and sometimes we fight, but we've made up so far, and that's awesome. What, am I supposed to be mad that I don't get to –' he waved a hand in a gesture he'd mostly picked up from the giant not-really-a-rabbit in question, and was vague enough to imply _romantic things_ without going into detail. 'That's not important. What's important is that I get to hang out with my best friend.'

He sort of expected her to ask another question, because she wasn't appearing to understand, but instead she sighed, a long, fluttering sound. 'That's so _sweet_ ,' she said. 'Oh, goodness. You're too good for this world, Jack.'

'Why?' Jack asked, and Tooth and Sandy shared a sort of _what are you going to do?_ look that Jack thought was a little unwarranted.

'Nothing, have another cookie,' she said, and Sandy waved the plate at him. 'These are sugar free!'

'I couldn't tell,' Jack admitted, which had Tooth twittering in pride, since she'd apparently made them herself. 'Oh, and Tooth?' he added, catching her attention. 'You should go talk to her.'

Tooth went a vivid crimson. 'Wh – who?'

'Oh, Durga over there,' Jack said with a lazy wave of the hand.

'I _couldn't_!' Tooth said with an outraged gasp. 'She's the _goddess of war_ , I'm just –'

'The Guardian of Memory?' Jack said sweetly, and laughed with Sandy at the way Tooth glared. 'Come on, Tooth, turnabout's fair play.'

'Please, your situation is different,' she dismissed.

'Well, I'm not saying go up and propose marriage,' Jack said, rolling his eyes and ignoring her sputtering. 'Just – go talk to her.'

'But…' Tooth said, looking a little lost. 'I've never talked to her before.'

Jack stared. 'Uh, let me just –' he said, shaking his head a little. 'You're both from India, and you're the queen of the tooth fairy armies, and _you've never talked to her_?'

'Oh, hush,' Tooth said, and glared at the way Sandy was laughing. 'You, too!'

Sandy signed something to the effect of _I've been telling her for years_ , which did nothing to dissuade Jack.

'Look, Tooth, you're never going to know if you don't talk to her,' he said.

'What would I even say?' she flapped her hands at him. 'My goodness, I have no idea how I'd even talk to her! Don't make it sound like it's easy!'

'Sure it is,' Jack said, grinning wickedly. 'Watch – hey, North!'

North turned his head in their direction, and lit up, blue eyes twinkling. He began to march his way over, Durga following him with a faint smile on her harshly beautiful face, and Jack heard Tooth squeak in dismay.

'No, no, no,' she moaned under her breath, 'Oh, Jack, you are in so much trouble –'

'Gotta catch me, first,' Jack said, stepping out of her range, and grinned at North, who had arrived at last.

'Jack, my friend!' he boomed. 'I do not believe you have had chance to meet Durga, so I am glad to hear you call me!' He leaned in and said in a quiet voice that you wouldn't know he could use to look at him, 'I heard you had trouble with dryad?'

'Not anymore,' Jack replied, grinning, and looked to Durga. 'Hi, there. Jack Frost.'

'I have heard your name,' Durga said, nodding slightly to him, and behind her voice Jack thought he could hear distant crackling, as if flames lived in her throat. 'It is a pleasure to meet you, Guardian of Joy.'

'Nice to meet you, too,' Jack said. 'Have you met Sandy and Tooth?'

'I have met the Sandman once or twice, yes,' she said with a distant smile for Sandy's companionable nod. 'I have not, however,' she added, and turned to Tooth with a gaze that looked like it probably burned a little, 'had the honour of meeting the last of the Sisters of Flight.'

Tooth went red again and mumbled something. Durga went on looking at her, eyebrows arching a bit, and Jack suspected that maybe it wasn't just Tooth who had been nervous about meeting someone else from the way two sets of hands behind Durga's back began to fiddle out of Tooth's sight.

'Jack, come with me,' North said loudly. 'Sandy said that he wished to show me new constellation he found, should be exciting!'

North was about as subtle as a thundersnow, but Jack followed them, North's words sitting strangely in his head. Behind them, Durga and Tooth began to speak quietly, hesitantly, as if not quite sure what to say to one another but intent on figuring it out, and Jack hid his grin. See, he _was_ capable of being a good matchmaker, he just had to figure out the right person who would fit with Aster.

They stood outside for half an hour, North and Sandy chatting about the possibility of the humans colonising other planets in the solar system (and what that would mean for their work – lots of portals, from what Jack was hearing, which was fine by him. North's portals were fun when you weren't tied up in a sack.) Occasionally, they would look at him, concerned, and Jack would grin at them. But he was thinking, turning over the weird way North's words had hit him, until he figured it out and gave a delighted whoop.

North nearly toppled over the edge of the balcony in surprise.

'Sorry,' Jack said, probably talking too fast from the way that Sandy was watching him, but he didn't care, he'd figured out his next step. 'I figured something out, so I've got to – sorry, North, got to go!'

He didn't wait to hear goodbyes, only sped off into the sky. He had a stop to make in Ireland, and since he didn't know exactly how long he had to act, he had to hurry.

  
  


  
  


'Jack. _Jack_.'

'Huh?' Jack said, sitting up in surprise. 'Oh, hey, Aster.'

He'd been drifting lazily over St. Petersburg, so involved in basking in his own cleverness before going to fetch Aster and put his plan in motion that he hadn't even heard Aster approach.

'Ye great gumby,' Aster huffed, but it was fond. Jack had been floating past a tall building – one of the office buildings, he thought – and trying to keep from snowing too hard all over the place. Aster had clearly just popped up onto the roof and waited until Jack'd wandered near enough to hear shouting. 'Causing trouble everywhere, I've been hearing.'

'What?' Jack said, blinking. 'I have not! And look, Seoul was overdue for some quality snow days, anyway –'

'Not that,' Aster snorted. Jack floated over and settled onto the roof, beside Aster. Someone (one of the employees below, Jack supposed) had long ago dragged chairs up here through the roof access, and Aster took a seat on one, looking at Jack with an expression that Jack could only call amused, because he wasn't sure what else was blended in with it. 'Apparently, Tooth's been floating on air this past week.'

'She always floats on air, ' Jack pointed out. Aster rolled his eyes.

'I mean, she's been almost euphoric. Talking to yer crush of two hundred years for the first time will do that to ye, I suppose.'

'That long, huh?' Jack said, and shrugged. 'I didn't do much, I just told her to try talking to Durga.'

'Well, Tooth's been driven almost to distraction, and according to Nick, she doesn't know whether to thank ye or smack ye. I'd steer clear until she's certain.'

Aster sounded a bit concerned about the prospect, and the thought of him being worried over Jack kind of made Jack's stomach flip-flop a little, so he nodded agreeably. 'Can do, Sweet Pea.'

Aster nudged Jack hard over the name, but Jack grinned; he'd meant it when he'd threatened the random flower names.

'So what's up, Aster?' Jack said, and sat down next to him. 'No way you came all the way out to Russia just to save me from Tooth's uncertain wrath.'

'Would, too,' Aster replied, and Jack couldn't help his smile. 'But, no. S'been a while since we went anywhere. Was wondering is ye'd like to.'

'Got a place in mind?'

'Not really, no. Can't a bloke just want to spend time with his mate?'

Jack stuck out his tongue, but it was nowhere as teasing as it would have been if this hadn't been a perfect opportunity. 'Course you can,' he said, and elbowed Aster, who elbowed him back. 'I have an invitation from a friend Underhill who wanted me to come to a stargazing party, and she said it was a plus one kind of thing.'

'Ye have an invitation Underhill,' Aster said, staring at him.

Jack shrugged, mostly because he knew it would annoy Aster. 'Standing one, actually,' he said. 'See, back in 1839 –'

'No, I don't want to know,' Aster interrupted, shaking his head. 'It's going to be convoluted and half made-up, anyway, knowing ye.' Jack wanted to protest, but since he'd been about to spout a load of bullshit, he didn't bother. 'Just – I thought no one except the Sidhe could get Underhill.'

'Close, no cigar,' Jack said. 'You're getting some of your stuff mixed up. Of course, everyone does, since everyone just lumps the Isles all together, but since the Isles all consolidated back in 2019 –'

'They what?'

'No, not the countries. The spirits. I mean, they all still hate each other – this is an Irish party, so don't expect any English to be there – but they all kind of cohabitate, now? It's weird,' Jack nodded at Aster's confused look, 'but there was a big schism in the Seelie court, which prompted the Unseelie Court to start messing around, and I'm still not sure how the Tuatha de Danann got involved, but there was a big debate over whether the word Sidhe even covered most of them, and _then_ there were the Fomori who got thrown forward in time –'

'This is why I stay in Australia,' Aster muttered, and Jack laughed delightedly.

'Okay, Cliffnotes version is, there was a big ol' clusterfuck and now everyone has to play nice Underhill until they finish constructing a second, third, and fourth plane for everyone to spread out in,' Jack summarised. 'Which has its own problems, because for the past thirty years the Irish and the Scottish spirits have been arguing over which one will have to be nearest the English one, and the Welsh spirits have been goading them all on.'

'I see,' Aster said, though it was clear he did no such thing, and Jack laughed again.

'So I've got a standing invitation Underhill because I know a bunch of people there, and also, if you haven't noticed, it's the best way to keep me out.'

'What do ye mean?' Aster said, frowning now. Jack just grinned and wiggled his fingers.

'No fun walking into a forbidden place if you're _allowed_ to be there.'

Aster was the one who laughed now, and the sound of it washed over Jack like a steady, warm western wind. Like spring. Jack beamed at Aster, because he couldn't not, after that.

'Anyway, do you want to come with? It'll be cool, and Perri's great, she's really fun.'

Aster eyed Jack. 'Perri?'

'My friend, the one who gave me the invitation,' Jack said, and shrugged. 'She's what they call a transplant – originally English, but when she moved over to Ireland, they decided she was worth keeping. Of course, she's been in Ireland now since just after the Romans failed to take Bray's Head, so who knows. I think she probably counts as more Irish than some of them.'

'Tell me the Leprechaun won't be there, and I'll go with ye,' Aster said, and Jack rolled his eyes.

'Please, it's a stargazing party,' he said. 'A bit too – I don't know, laid back for the Leprechaun's taste, isn't it?'

'Too right,' Aster agreed, and relaxed a little. 'Decent bloke, but he does tend to turn everything into a rager.'

Jack grinned. 'Well, if you meet me at the Shannon International Airport, near the west fence, I'll show you how to get in.'

'To Underhill?' Aster looked a little impressed despite himself, and Jack winked at him. Aster's ears twitched, but it wasn't quite in amusement. Jack wasn't sure what it was.

'Of course! One of us should be able to get in and out illicitly whenever he likes,' Jack said, and Aster laughed again.

'When should I meet ye there?'

'Whenever you get there,' Jack shrugged. 'I'll be waiting. Shannon deserves a little cheer, don't you think?' As if in emphasis, a quick gust of wind blew past them, carrying a barrage of snow. Aster didn't look amused, which just set Jack off, laughing so hard he rose into the air. 'Sorry, Bun-bun, but your face was priceless.'

'Rack off,' Aster muttered, and stood. 'See ye there.'

'Later, Aster!' Jack called down the tunnel after him before it closed, and rose higher into the sky. This was great. He'd get to hang out with Aster a while, and then he'd introduce Aster and Perri, and then he'd leave them alone to stargaze. That sounded romantic enough, in Jack's opinion, to sway anybody.

  
  


  
  


Jack sat on the chain link fence, and watched as airplanes took off and landed in the very gentle snow he was casting over the landscape. He wanted to storm a little harder, but he didn't feel like getting scolded for the trouble that would cause. He could save it a little longer, he thought.

A tunnel opened a few feet away from him, but Aster clearly hadn't been expecting the thin layer of snow, because he cursed as he popped up, brushing it off his ears. 'Holy dooley, that's cold,' he muttered, and looked around a second before his eyes settled, green as any Irish spring, on Jack. 'Didn't keep ye waiting, did I?'

'Not really,' Jack said, shrugging down at him. 'Only got here ten minutes ago.'

'S'good,' Aster nodded. 'So, the entrance to Underhill is at the Shannon airport?'

'Nope,' Jack said, and grinned. 'It's over it.'

Aster stared. 'What do ye mean?'

'Land was a bit higher back when this entrance was made,' Jack said and gestured at a point of air some ten feet above him, shimmering faintly in the harsh lights of the airstrip. 'Only a bit, though. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?'

Aster ignored Jack's teasing to look up into the air with a distinctly disgruntled expression. 'That's almost twenty feet up, mate.'

'What's twenty feet to a guy who can fly?' Jack replied, and winked down at Aster. 'Or a guy who can jump?'

'And if I miss?'

'Try again? I dunno,' Jack shrugged at Aster's sharp look. 'It's not like only half of you'd get in to Underhill and the other half would be lying on the tarmac. I'm pretty sure if you touch it, all of you will go through.'

'Ye're a comfort,' Aster muttered.

'Thanks, Jessamine!' Jack said brightly, and laughed at Aster's dark look. 'Look, Aster, if it's such a worry to you, I can carry you through.'

'Buckley's chance,' Aster said immediately, and Jack rolled his eyes.

'It'd be easy,' he said, trying to sound reassuring, mostly because Aster wasn't really nervous about heights so much as he was about flying, and not controlling where he was going. Not that Aster had ever said as much, but Jack could read between the lines at least half the time. 'No embarrassing princess hold, even. I'll go nice and slow, and we'll be through and on solid ground before you know it.' Jack paused, then shrugged. 'At least, as solid as the ground ever gets in Underhill. It shifts around, you know.'

Aster was looking off to the side, visibly trying not to bristle at the implication that he'd be afraid of anything, and Jack sighed before jumping down.

'Aster,' he said firmly, and Aster started, surprised. 'It's going to be fine. Promise. As far as you're concerned, all you've gotta do is hold my hand.' Jack raised an eyebrow at the way Aster's ears twitched back. 'Come on, is it that bad?' he asked lightly, and grinned up at Aster from the re-established height difference. 'Twenty feet, that's all. Promise not to drop you.'

'I'll drop ye if ye do,' Aster threatened, but he didn't look so tense, all of a sudden.

'You'd have to catch me first,' Jack said, and stuck his tongue out. 'Been practising, Azalea. Might get as fast as you, one of these days.'

'Not likely,' Aster scoffed, but it wasn't insulting, just true, so Jack held out his hand. Tentatively (and struggling to look like it was confident, Jack could tell) Aster took Jack's fingers in his paw, and Jack rose up into the air, mostly because the feeling of holding Aster's paw, even just to fly a short distance, was exhilarating. They were of an eye level now, and Jack smiled encouragingly.

'Ready, then?'

'Reckon,' Aster said, and sounded very firm. He still startled a bit when the Wind curled around him, buoying his weight up, and his paw tightened around Jack's hand; in response, Jack threaded their fingers together, to keep a firmer grip and to give a little comfort.

The Wind lifted them gently and steadily, a foot or so a second; Jack had thought that would be easier than dragging Aster's weight himself, leaving his friend to dangle from his arm. Finally, they arrived on level with the gate, and Aster was significantly less tense than before. 'Not as bad as North's sleigh,' he said when Jack gave him a questioning glance, which made Jack feel a hundred feet tall, that he could do this for Aster, make things easier.

'Then come on,' he said, and smiled a grin that felt a little dangerous on his face. 'Aren't you curious?'

'More than I should be,' Aster admitted, looking at Jack with green eyes that gleamed in the lights of the airport behind and below them. 'Anything I should know?'

'Well, I know you've probably heard this already, but don't eat any of the food or drink any of the water,' Jack said, trying to set aside his own glee to be serious. 'No matter how nice they are about it. Hate to have to leave you here, Daffodil.'

'So the food really curses everyone not from Underhill?' Aster said, blinking.

'Not the food. Some kind of magical geas cast by the Fairy Queen, back before True Thom had his jaunt through.' Jack shrugged. 'Pretty strictly enforced, far as I can tell.'

'Then how do the people living Underhill excuse their leaving?'

Jack opened his mouth to answer, then realised that he didn't _have_ an answer. 'No idea,' he admitted. 'Perri might know. She's a bit of an archivist – collects history and theories on the Sidhe. Oh! And don't use the word Sidhe, some people are still sensitive about that debate I mentioned.'

'Ah,' Aster said, looking perturbed. 'Got it.'

'That should be it,' Jack said, and smiled. 'Other than that, don't say the Fairy Queen's name, because she'll be summoned, and then she'll be annoyed. You don't want to see her annoyed.' Jack shuddered, and not a bit of it was theatrical. Aster gave him a look again, but Jack just shrugged – it was kind of an embarrassing story. 'Let's head on through.'

'Lead the way,' Aster said, gesturing at the gate, and Jack laughed before tugging Aster through.

Passing into Underhill was like – Jack figured the best comparison was like walking in reverse. Not like walking backwards, but like for a brief second, everything about you was doing the precise opposite of what it had been doing before; the heart did the opposite of pump blood, whatever that was, and the lungs inhaled and exhaled at the same time, only the opposite of that. Okay, so there was no way to compare it to something, but it felt like the world reversed in some unknown way for a second, before resuming its flow.

They stepped out into a glade lit by starlight – while outside (as good a word as any for describing where they'd come from) the moon was waxing towards full, there was no moon here. Jack had never seen a moon here, but he didn't know if that was because he kept visiting when it was in its new phase, or if for some reason the Sidhe had never emulated it here.

Around them, the trees bore tiny five-petalled flowers that managed to look utterly unearthly, and as Jack set them the few inches down to the ground, Aster looked very much like he would like to go examine them more closely. 'Go ahead,' Jack said, letting go of Aster's paw and grinning at the look Aster shot him. 'We've got a few minutes before someone comes along to collect us.'

'Go ahead and what?' Aster asked, shifting a bit.

'I know you want to look at the flowers,' Jack said, and raised his eyebrows at Aster's look of surprise. 'Come on, I'm your best friend, and I'm not dumb. They're magical, by the way. Not dangerous,' he said hastily when Aster looked at them suspiciously, 'Just – they're not real flowers. Not like any flower outside Underhill, at least.'

'Bet ye I could make them,' Aster said absently, giving in and making his way over.

'I won't take a bet I know I'd lose,' Jack replied, and earned himself an affectionate smile.

True to Jack's word, a few minutes passed before someone arrived – and Aster stared when the person walked into the glade.

Well, walked was such a strong word. She _flowed_ in, legs moving but not at the speed she was travelling at, and there was the sense that she was moving you towards herself, rather than the other way around. She was only a hair taller than Jack, but built very differently – sturdy and thick, with shoulders that looked as though they'd been built with the weight of the world in mind. Her face wasn't precisely what one could call beautiful, but there was something pleasing in the curves and angles, and though her nose was a little too large and her eyes a little too wide, it was the kind of face you'd think of when you thought 'fae'. She had bound her long black hair back in a complex-looking braided rope, and it swung almost to the ground behind her.

'Jack, you made it,' she said, voice soft and rolling like a distant storm, and Jack smiled widely.

'Course I did, had to accept _one of_ your invitations eventually, right?' Jack said, and let her pull him into a back-cracking hug. 'Good to see you, Perri.'

'And you! Now, who is your companion?' she said, and pulled a massive pair of golden spectacles from her long robe. She set them on her nose, and looked around owlishly before settling her gaze on Aster. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you.'

'S'alright,' Aster said, sounding a little uncomfortable.

'What's your name?' she asked briskly, and Jack grinned at the way Aster started; it had probably been a _while_ since he'd met someone who didn't recognise him on sight.

'I'm E. Aster Bunnymund, but I go by Bunny these days,' Aster said, and to Jack's delight, a slow smile was spreading over his face. 'I take it ye're the famous Perri?'

'Jack mentioned me, I see,' she nodded. 'Good. I should've known it would be you, Jack mentioned you last visit.' She squinted at him, apparently approved, and removed her glasses again. 'Thought you'd be taller, the way he talks about you.'

'Er,' Aster said, a little thrown.

'He's like seven feet tall, that's tall enough,' Jack said, rolling his eyes. Perri was hilariously blunt for a Sidhe, but even Jack, who'd known her for ages, had trouble understanding the point she was getting at sometimes.

'Certainly compared to you,' she said, and poked him good-naturedly. 'Please, follow me,' she said, mostly for Aster's benefit. 'I trust Jack's given you the traditional warnings?'

'Er,' Aster repeated, still looking off-balance, and Jack laughed.

'Yeah, Perri doesn't go much for the whole _tricking someone into eating_ , or any of the other stuff,' Jack said, and stuck his tongue out at her scowl. 'She's no good at it, so she goes in the opposite direction.'

'My talents lay elsewhere,' Perri said haughtily, but she had a smile playing around her mouth. 'Now, come. We're about to get started.'

Aster fell into step beside Jack, or at least walked beside him while Jack floated along, and they followed Perri out of the glade and into a wood aglow with little lights that disappeared when you looked too closely.

Aster was still smiling, and Jack hummed happily; Aster nudged his shoulder into Jack's side, and asked quietly, 'How are ye, Jacko?'

'Pretty good,' Jack said, and sighed softly as they left the wood behind and stepped into a wide clearing. Aster made a similar noise, and Jack grinned.

Above them, extending out and farther than any sky Jack had ever known, was the heavens – splashed liberally with stars, glittering distant and lovely above. Around them were the soft murmurs of the gathering Sidhe, and there were all sorts here – Jack didn't know the names for most of them, but he could see fire spirits with their dimmed glows and water-women with their gleaming rivers of hair, dullahans with their heads tucked under their arms, and even the faintly shimmering forms of the wind-lasses, speaking in whispers to their companions. It was a big event, clearly.

Beside him, Aster looked a little surprised at how many Sidhe were in attendance, and Perri nodded. 'It won't stay this size, or we wouldn't get any true stargazing done,' she told them matter-of-factly. 'There's some mingling, of course, because most of these folk like the sound of their own voice more than they should –'

Aster snorted, and Jack gave Perri a point.

'– but they'll get over it,' she finished. 'Then, most will set off in twos and threes, and find a place to settle for a while.'

'Cool,' Jack said, grinning. 'So what's the big change? Sandy on the topside said there was a new constellation?'

'Indeed,' Perri agreed. 'Five new stars, all bright, all making a new shape. The Seers Guild about had a meltdown, since only half of them had seen it coming, so there were a lot of existential crises.'

Aster laughed outright, his voice blending in neatly with the laughter and talk of the Sidhe all around them, and Jack couldn't help the way his smile was curling into a satisfied smirk. Aster fit in here, and he and Perri were getting along well, and Jack figured he had a great reason to be satisfied. Perri looked satisfied as well – Jack had heard her complain more than once that no one Underhill had the right sense of humour – and smiled at Aster.

'Have to admit that I haven't noticed,' Aster said, as they followed Perri past the crowds of people. Around them, the groups were beginning to disperse, and she led them past the edge of the clearing back into the forest of little lights, and beyond that to a rolling landscape of gentle hills, each of them the precise distance necessary to provide some privacy from the other hilltops. 'Spend most of me time focussed on the dirt.'

'Spring, right?' Perri asked absently, making her way towards a hilltop apart from the others and so far unclaimed. 'I suppose it would make sense, even though the equinox is a solar event.'

'Planetary, too,' Aster pointed out. 'Both hemispheres.'

'And in places that don't have spring?'

'Everywhere has a spring, even if it's without flowers or green things.'

Perri shrugged. 'As you say – far be it from me to tell you how to do your job.'

'Really?' Jack said, making a bit of a face. 'You tell me how to do mine all the time.'

'Well, I like spring better than I like winter,' Perri replied, smiling. 'Warmer, and I'm not kept inside.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Jack said, rolling his eyes.

'Nothing wrong with a bit of cold, if the timing's right,' Aster interjected, which was a little surprising, given how much he complained about the thinnest layer of ice.

'Agree to disagree, I suppose,' she said, and sat down on the ground as they topped out at last. Though the hill hadn't appeared to be any taller than the others, it still put Jack in mind of sitting on a mountain, with all the world below and all the sky above.

'So, where is this new constellation?' Aster asked, his voice a little tight. Jack had no idea what _that_ was about, but he figured it wasn't really his business.

'Sandy showed me,' Jack said, and pointed at the five of them. 'They don't have names yet – they only just became visible, after all. But there they are.' He traced the spiral shape they made, and grinned. 'Sandy has a theory, though.'

Both Aster and Perri looked at him then, each precisely as curious as the other, and Jack grinned. 'Well, Aster, you became a Guardian with the others, right?'

'Shortly after North, yeah,' Aster said, frowning. 'Then Tooth, then Sandy.'

'Right. And why did you become Guardians?'

'To defeat Pitch.'

Jack mimicked the sound of a buzzer, startling Aster and making Perri chuckle. 'Wrong, sorry,' he said, smiling. 'The Man in the Moon made us Guardians because he wanted to...'

'Foster a new Golden Age,' Aster murmured, and looked up to the constellation again. 'Then why didn't it appear when ye agreed to join us?'

'I think we had some work to do before it was ready,' Jack shrugged, 'But Sandy thinks that we've done it.'

'Done what?' Perri asked, looking between them avidly.

'Started a new Golden Age,' Jack said, and loved the way Aster's eyes widened and lit up with understanding. 'Course, it's really young, and we need to keep taking care of it, but it's going to spread. We're succeeding.'

'This is fascinating,' Perri said, standing up abruptly and startling them both. 'This – this fits in with, oh, goodness, at least six of the Old Prophecies, I'll need to cross check to be certain that the Seventeenth Prophecy really was about the Phoenicians, but –' she didn't even seem to see them anymore. 'Oh, drat, half of my books are in storage, I'll need to –'

'Wait, Perri,' Jack said, alarmed. 'Where are you going?'

'I need to record this, you ninny!' she said sharply. 'Good gracious, this is important! You clearly don't understand –'

'Seeing how he's a Guardian and ye're not,' Aster said in a smooth voice that it took Jack a second to understand was actually _angry_ , 'I think he might have a better idea than ye.'

Perri paused, but nodded, her misstep leaving her mind as quickly as a late spring frost in sunlight. 'Suppose you're right,' she said, and nodded her head to Jack. 'Sorry, Jack. But I really must go –'

'Okay,' Jack said, because when she was like this, there was no way anyone could keep her away from her books. 'I'll see you sometime?'

'Not for at least three years, I don't think,' she said, eyes distant with plans and research that would just make Jack's head hurt to think about, so he didn't. 'Goodness, I'll need to shut down the whole of the Undercroft –'

She walked away, muttering under her breath, and Jack sighed. 'So much for that,' he joked when he looked at Aster. 'She's miles away by now.'

'She's a mite odd, isn't she?' Aster said, watching her go with a tight set to his ears that suggested he still wasn't pleased with her. 'Bit rude, too.'

'Well,' Jack hedged, 'Kind of? She gets caught up in what she's doing and she's never been great with other people's feelings. Course, it doesn't really bother me – birds of a feather, and all.'

'Ye're nothing like her,' Aster asserted, turning his gaze on Jack. 'Ye can be thoughtless sometimes –'

Jack raised his eyebrow, because he wasn't sure where Aster was going with this.

'– but ye're kind. She sort of gives off the impression that she has a hard time – ye know, caring about someone for more than the moment.'

'A lot of the fae are like that,' Jack said, carefully avoiding the word Sidhe just in case someone heard, but Aster had a point. Perri was fun and all, and clever as anything, but she _wasn't_ always the nicest person. Maybe it was for the best that she had to run off, he thought, because now he was doubting she and Aster actually could manage to date.

'Well, if that's how she talks to ye, and ye're her friend,' Aster said, looking back up into the sky, 'I'd hate to hear her talk to someone she doesn't like.'

'Are you mad?' Jack asked, surprised at the revelation. 'She wasn't saying anything rude to you.'

'Being rude to _ye_ is more than enough reason to irritate _me_ ,' Aster said firmly, which left Jack more than a bit wordless. 'Now, are we going to stargaze, or not?'

'Sure, Calla Lily.'

'Ye're never going to stop with the flowers, are ye?'

'Not a _chance_ , Clover.'

 


	3. Shown

January was Jack's second favourite month, at least north of the Equator (he had to keep two separate lists, since winter happened at opposite ends of the year, depending where on the globe you were.) The adults hadn't gotten sick of all the snow yet, and the kids were still on Christmas holiday, and he had pretty much free reign to do whatever. He'd officially picked up the Winter thing a few decades back, when Old Man Winter was ready to retire, and he couldn't lie, he took a lot of joy in it (ha).

Jack was still _Jack_ , though, so that meant sometimes he wanted to be alone, even if just for a few hours. He wasn't sure he'd ever get completely used to being seen and having friends, but he'd come pretty far, and he figured wanting to be alone once in a while was pretty normal. Besides, Winter was awesome, but it came with its side effects, so he had to stay on top of it or – well, he'd been slacking lately, was all, and he had to make up for it now.

The northern coast of Norway, rocky beaches and metal-grey oceans that peeked out from under thick ice, was a pretty lonely place. Jack loved it for precisely that reason – it was lonely, and cold, and ugly by a lot of people's standards, but never his. The forest that pressed right up to the edges of the cliffs was magnificent and old, tall stands of trees that had known more centuries than Jack had and thick with the weight of them. Years could go by now without any snowmelt, and the stones of the cliff and boulders on the beach were wet with the spray of the ocean.

Jack alighted on a big flat stone that was smooth with years of his pacing visits, and jutted out into the sea like a natural dock. It had been a long time, if ever, since boats had used it; Jack walked to the end, letting the spray catch him and revelling in the danger of it, in the tiny touch of nerves at the sensation of cold water. It was fun, sometimes, to remind himself that while he was technically dead, he was still alive.

He twisted his staff in his hands, spinning it showily though there was no one but the sky and the sea to see it, and caught it neatly after twirling it through his fingers. The Wind howled across the cliffs and hit him hard, but did not snatch him up; he spread his arms wide and laughed into the gale, his clothes snapping frantically, and rose to his toes.

'You ready?' he asked her – screamed it, really, she was one of the loudest things he'd ever met – and she shrieked back in answer, tossing the ocean waves up and soaking him more thoroughly. He shivered, and not from the cold, but it was alright – if anything could prove to him that he was alive and well, it was what he was about to do.

Part of him wanted to be alone because he genuinely enjoyed it – the Wind didn't count, of course, because she'd been there from the beginning (even when he'd been Jackson, though he'd never noticed the fortuitous bursts of wind and teasing breezes when he was alive) and he had no idea what it was like to not have her constantly around him. Of course, he only called her 'her' out of fondness. She had neither gender nor name, not really. She was movement and speed and exhilaration, nothing more, but nothing less either, and she loved him, and he loved her. That's the way it was, and the way it always would be.

The part of him that wasn't just Jack, but was Winter and Joy, wanted to be alone because – well.

He rose straight up, not letting the Wind pull him off course, until he was about twenty metres or so above the stone. Holding his staff tightly in his right hand, he spread his arms wide and tipped backwards, and let go.

The storm ripped out of him like it had been waiting to get free, and it really had. It was his fault for having put it off for so long. Ever since they'd cut Pitch down to size, and especially since he'd taken on the duties of Winter, there'd always been too much snow in him, too much ice and howling Wind. He'd learned how to take the bite out of storms, how to gentle blizzards into snow days, but all of that caged ferocity had to go _somewhere_.

It was too dangerous to loose somewhere where people lived – especially, god forbid, children – but it was _fun_ to let go, to explode all of the ice in him outwards at once and watch the resultant storm rage.

The Wind curled around him like a purring tiger, tightly wound but tame for the moment, and he let her hold him up, bobbing gently within the midst of a great blizzard that was anything but gentle. The sea below was whipped into a frenzy, the ice groaning as it was shifted around, and he spun in delight. How could anyone hold still who was caught up in this – how could anyone not dance in joy? He could see the Wind now, her ripples and currents visible in the swirling snow, her shrieking fury at having been caged and her screaming relief at being released, and he laughed. This was Joy at its core – letting go, even being a little destructive, all for the great glee of _doing_ something.

He tilted up and over, at an angle that made his blood rush to his head a little, and let the Wind cradle him. He tipped his head back to look and see if he'd managed to scatter the bigger rocks below; maybe he'd even moved a boulder again.

Instead, standing still and unmoved by the Wind, no matter how she battered at him, was Aster.

Jack dropped a couple of feet in surprise before catching himself, but Aster seemed utterly unaware of his presence, standing at the end of the natural stone jetty and looking out to sea with a thoughtful expression. His ears were laid back and tucked along his shoulders in something that Jack knew instinctively wasn't the flatness of embarrassment or nerves but something else entirely, though what it could be was utterly beyond him.

Jack rose higher and hid himself among the clouds, face feeling bizarrely warm for all the snow and ice that surrounded him. Man, of all the times for Aster to come looking for him.

After the stargazing party, Aster had _seemed_ fine on the surface – certainly, when they'd gone to the other Guardians, there'd been enough Joy all around at the idea that they were making progress that Jack could feel it buzzing in his teeth. But there had been a kind of – fierceness, hanging around Aster that Jack didn't understand. It was like he was still mad about the way Perri had spoken to Jack, but she wasn't around and he didn't have anyone to say anything to. Frustrated, Jack supposed. Nevertheless, it had resulted in some distance between the two of them, and in the four days since, Aster had been pretty firmly entrenched in the Warren, tending to the eggplants that were just starting to bud.

Seriously, though, he'd picked an awful time to come out of his funk and come after Jack. Jack had never told anyone he came up here to make storms for a reason: in short, it was kind of embarrassing. Sure, _he_ thought it was great fun, and all of the storms inside him had to go _somewhere_ , but he also didn't like looking like he had as little control as a decade-old spirit. If Aster knew Jack was here and letting off steam… well, he just hoped Aster didn't, because this could turn into one of those funny stories that weren't so funny when they were about _you_.

Jack paused, rewound his thought process a bit, then frowned. Hold on. He'd never told _anyone_ he came up here to make storms, and the Wind would have blown any trace of his scent to kingdom come in this squall. What the heck was Aster doing here, then?

He peeked out from behind one of the thicker clouds, ignoring the ice crystals that were gathering in the folds of his clothes, and struggling to see through the thick snow. With a wiggle of his fingers, he stretched the blizzard out much farther than the mile or so he'd been concentrating on, and with so much space to spread into, the snow began to calm. He still had to squint a bit, but he could see Aster again.

Aster had taken a seat on the same stone jetty Jack had walked so many times that he knew every crack in its surface, and his knees were drawn up to his chest. He looked strangely small, a combination of Jack's distance and the way his ears were tight to his skull, and Jack felt a pang like a gong struck in his chest. Was Aster upset? Had Jack not noticed?

And, more immediately pressing, was this a place Aster came when he was upset?

Jack retreated up into the clouds, where the Wind was still shrieking at her own freedom, and let her take him wherever she wanted within the storm. While he was buffeted and thrown this way and that in her grip, never hurt but certainly tossed around like a plaything, he cursed himself out. How could he and Aster share a place they went to be alone, and _never have run into one another over the years_? It seemed impossible to contemplate, too coincidental to be true, but more impossible things happened to him all the time (though none quite so vexing). And worse was the thought that maybe he'd been intruding on Aster's space for years, now. Maybe Aster didn't come often anymore since Jack began to. Maybe Jack had driven him away.

Jack shook his head. He had no proof of that – and Jack had a hard time believing Aster would just duck out if he saw someone else in his place. Knowing Aster, he'd march over and demand the intruder leave, actually. The idea made Jack snicker, and he relaxed. It wasn't as disastrous as it had seemed, he guessed. It probably _was_ coincidence that had caused this, was all. The world may be a big place, but it managed to be small at the same time.

It was another hour before the squall began to calm, and he sighed a breath of relief as the Wind set him down gently on a cliff about three miles from the stone jetty. He was glad that was out of his system – too much build up, and he started to make it snow harder than he meant it to (Chicago, Paris, Seoul, Chongqing – the list of cities that had ended up with more snow than projected as getting kind of long, and Jack preferred not to think too hard about it).

He crept back towards the stone jetty, staying downwind just in case, and paused when it was in his sights again.

The Wind had died down some, but she was naturally kind of strong around here, and he could see the way she was ruffling at Aster's fur, his ears moving under her touch. She'd been absurdly affectionate towards Aster since he'd let Jack fly him through to Underhill, and Jack could see the way she intentionally gentled herself around him. It made his heart beat faster, and a smile spread over his face; sure, Aster might never be his – whatever – but he was his best friend, and it was great to see the two beings with the most claim to his affection so fond of one another. Well, Jack assumed Aster was fond of the Wind; he didn't appear to be complaining about her ministrations, still curled up and facing the sea.

Jack wondered if he should go over. On the one hand, if Aster came here to be alone like Jack did, then maybe he didn't want the company.

On the other, he might get mad if he found out Jack had essentially spied on him. Not that Jack had wanted to, and he'd been here first, but… if he went over, he'd have to admit the storm was him, and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with that right now. He sighed; maybe later he could go find Aster, and say that he was flying past? But then…

Aster's ears twitched, though, and Jack cursed himself again. Of course he'd forget Aster's crazy hearing when it was least convenient – he could probably hear Jack dithering all the way over there. He was certainly swivelling his ears this way and that, so Jack just sighed again and took to the air, landing neatly beside his friend.

'Hey, Periwinkle,' he said. 'What's up?'

Aster looked at him, a little surprised, judging from the flick of his ears. 'Lo, Frostbite,' he said, and smiled, uncurling a bit. 'What's got ye in these parts?'

Jack resisted the physical urge to squirm under Aster's curious gaze, and deflected with 'What about you? A little cold for your tastes, I'd think.'

Aster shrugged, and gestured out to the sea. 'S'quiet, usually,' he said. 'Had a bit of a rager there for a bit, though – sometimes she storms pretty hard around here.'

Jack sucked in a breath, earning a glance from Aster; yeah, no good attempting to lie. 'Sorry about that,' he said at last, flopping down onto the rock and dangling his feet off the edge, just out of reach of the calmer sea's splashing. 'Didn't think anyone else came here.'

'Wait – that was ye?' Aster asked, and now he looked concerned. 'Is something wrong?'

'What? No,' Jack protested, sitting up a bit and putting his weight on his elbows. 'Sometimes I just want to storm a bit.' Which wasn't a lie, precisely, so much as it was an omission, and even then it was a tiny thing.

'So the storms are…' Aster made a face halfway between sudden clarity and embarrassment, accentuated by the flattening of his ears. 'Sorry, I never reckoned it was ye. I've never seen ye up here.'

'I guessed,' Jack shrugged, and flopped back down. 'Didn't see you either, if it helps. Guess we kept missing each other.'

'Ye could say that,' Aster agreed, and tucked back up into his curl of before, body a little tenser. 'I ought've know it was ye, though,' he said after a moment. 'Thought they came and went awful quick.'

'Yeah, well,' Jack said, but was cut off by Aster adding,

'I like them. They're exciting. Lovely and wild.'

'Thanks,' Jack said back automatically, because he was polite, and because it was a single syllable so he didn't have to think too hard. He'd had no idea Aster thought so – of any storms, much less these, the ones he made as an outlet and had hid from everyone. Maybe he could imagine North liking them, but springtime, warm-as-sunlight Aster? 'I thought –' Jack began, but then cut himself off, still thrown.

'Ye thought what?' Aster asked, sounding a little defensive.

'I just... I thought you didn't like blizzards,' Jack finished, the sentence sounding lame outside his head.

'I don't like 'em on me holiday,' Aster said, and he gave Jack a look that was reproving. 'But they've got their place. Everything's got its place. And this one is a right beaut.'

Jack didn't answer, because something sounded – off. 'Wait, this isn't about the Perri thing, is it?' he asked abruptly, and Aster winced.

'Not really,' Aster said, but Jack rolled his eyes. 'Okay, a bit.'

'Why?' Jack said, sitting up. 'She didn't say anything bad, not really. No worse than anything you've said!' he added with a grin, hoping to get a smile from Aster and instead receiving another wince. 'Aster?'

'It's not right,' Aster said at last, looking out to sea again instead of at Jack. 'Ye get so much guff for something that's necessary and important. There'd be no Spring without Winter.'

Jack stared. 'She didn't mean it badly, Rue,' he said slowly. 'She was just teasing.'

'Maybe,' Aster muttered, 'but ye don't really get the respect ye deserve.'

Jack's face felt like it was on fire, because – well, he knew Aster was his best friend, but they never really talked about it. Aster, saying such nice things, being so angry on his behalf – Jack wasn't sure he deserved such a great friend, but he was glad Aster had picked him.

'Well, don't worry about it,' Jack said, trying to sound cheery instead of completely bowled over. 'If I know I'm cool shit, and you know I'm cool shit, then I don't really mind about the rest of the world.'

Aster snorted, ears quirking back into amusement. Jack thought quietly that next time, he'd check to see if Aster was here first, and if he was, he'd make the next storm the biggest one ever _seen_.

Even in the gentle bubble of the Wind's influence, it was still freaking Norway in January, and so Jack didn't miss the way a shiver travelled through Aster's frame. 'Come on, you're cold,' he announced, standing. 'We should go.'

'Am not,' Aster replied huffily, and to his credit, didn't sound cold at all. Jack wasn't blind, though.

'Uh huh, okay,' Jack nodded as seriously as he could when he felt like he was straining muscles to keep from smiling. 'Well, _I'm_ going to the Warren. Feel free to join me where it's warm, or, well,' he fluttered his eyes at Aster teasingly. 'Who _knows_ what kind of trouble I could get into?'

'Don't ye dare,' Aster said, standing as well and looming over Jack in a way that was very distracting and definitely wouldn't haunt Jack's dreams for weeks, no way. 'I've seen the way ye've been eyeing the Colouring River, and if ye think I'm letting ye ice it over –'

'Not the whole thing,' Jack wheedled, rising into the air without moving a muscle, 'Just enough for an eeny meeny bitsy ice sculpture, promise!' He grinned at Aster, whose expression was unmoved but his ears twitching like crazy, and reached up, tweaking one of his ears.

Aster stumbled backwards with a loud yelp, eyes gone wide, and almost toppled right off the rock. Jack laughed and caught Aster's flailing paw, pulling him steady. 'Come on, let's go,' he said, still chuckling at Aster's expression of shock and – well, Jack wasn't sure, but it was a good look on him. Aster didn't move, his eyes trained on Jack's, and Jack frowned. 'You going to stand there all day, Tulip?' he asked after a moment.

'Er, sorry,' Aster said abruptly, shaking his head. 'See ye there.' He opened a tunnel and dropped into it, closing it behind himself, which was sort of weird but not too unusual, and Jack shrugged before rocketing up into the sky. Hopefully that would be the last weird thing for a while, and Jack could focus on finding someone else who might match up with Aster, since he'd run out of ideas.

As he flew, a thought struck him, and he grinned to himself. He knew just who to ask, now that he thought about it, and he made his way to the Warren with a happy hum. He always _did_ think more clearly once he'd gotten some of the storm out of him, and it was a good next step.

First, though, was spending time with Aster. Who knew – maybe Sandy would have such a good idea that soon Aster wouldn't have a lot of free time at all! Jack ignored the way that thought was both awesome and awful – so what if it meant he'd get to hang out with Aster less, then Aster would have someone to be happy with, and that was way more important – and put the plan out of his mind for now.

  
  


  
  


Surprisingly, Jack spent a big chunk of his time with Sandy, something he wouldn't have imagined as a consequence for becoming a Guardian. Then again, he hadn't ever thought he'd be friends with Aster, much less in love with him, so that just meant he'd never considered what it would be like to be a Guardian in the first place. Which he hadn't – before he'd picked up this gig, the idea of Jack Frost being so prominent was a laughable concept, one that he'd never thought would really happen, much less the way it had.

But, regardless, Sandy was the person he saw most often, even counting out Aster – which was an achievement, since Jack went out of his way to spend time with Aster in the first place. It made some sense, though; Jack and Sandy's jobs had a commonality, which was that both dreams and frost came in the night.

Tonight was the last night of January, and Jack was pretty pleased with how the winter had turned out so far. With the storming behind him, he'd been able to gentle most of the winter to soft snow-days and clear nights, if keeping it super cold. He and Sandy were somewhere over Sweden tonight, and Jack was sending tiny flurries chasing after Sandy's dreamsand while explaining the situation.

He'd sworn Sandy to secrecy of the highest order (no good letting Aster know what was going on, he'd be so annoyed) before spilling the story, and as always, Sandy was the best listener, signing questions at the right moments and paying close attention otherwise.

'I've just run out of ideas,' Jack finished up, floating on his back beside Sandy. 'I mean, I'd thought Ismene was a sure shot, you know? And in retrospect, Perri was kind of a dumb choice, but I'd definitely thought their personalities would match up.' He thought about the way Aster had been so annoyed at the things Perri had said, when they'd been practically word for word things _he'd_ said before, and winced. 'Maybe they matched up too well.'

Sandy shrugged then nodded knowledgeably. He signed a flower, a circle with an arrow jutting out of it, and a question mark.

Jack felt his own eyes widen to what had to be comedic levels. 'Man, I didn't even think about that,' he groaned, and Sandy laughed at him good-naturedly. 'You really think he's into guys?'

Sandy nodded again, exaggerated, as if this was something Jack should have noticed by now.

'I thought he liked girls, though.'

Yet another nod, this one a little more exasperated.

'Oh,' Jack said, mulling it over. 'Guess I should have figured that out, huh?'

Sandy reached over and patted Jack's hand with his own tiny, pudgy fingers. Everyone kept doing that lately, from Tooth's gentle prods to Sandy's knowing pats to even North's massive shoulder clap two days past, like Jack was missing something. Jack wished they'd just tell him. 'Well,' he said, and gave up the flicker of annoyance as useless in the face of Sandy's effusive good mood, 'do you have an idea, then?'

Sandy nodded once more, looking delighted at the question, and began to spin a series of images that had Jack laughing. 'No, come on, a real idea.'

Sandy pouted and repeated the show.

'Did Tooth put you up to this as revenge for the Durga thing?' Jack asked suspiciously. 'Because I told you both, Aster's not into me that way.'

Sandy threw his hands in the air, and between them flashed three images: a snowflake, an aster, and a symbol Jack recognised as Sandy's general shorthand for stupidity.

'I'm not being dumb,' Jack said confidently. 'It's just not like that. Why are you and Tooth so bent on this? I'm happy the way we are, and so's Aster. If he'd ever wanted anything different, he would have said so.'

Sandy rolled his eyes and signed a third set of images – an aster, a complex squiggle that normally meant unhappiness, a differently-complex squiggle that meant ignorance, and finally a heart.

'Sandy,' Jack said, frowning now. 'Please. Aster would have said something.'

Sandy shook his head emphatically.

'No, really. I've never made a secret of it,' Jack insisted. 'Mostly because why should it be a secret? It's a great thing when you love someone, that's what I know. And Aster's not stupid, either. He's had to have known for years.'

Sandy huffed and signed a blindfolded figure.

'How could he not know?' Jack asked, bewildered. 'I mean, yeah, I've never said it, because even I know that's a little heavy for a friendship, but – _everyone's_ in love with him, Sandy. Other than you guys,' he conceded magnanimously, because Sandy was giving him a sharp look. 'And not a lot, just a little. I'm not different from anyone else.'

The symbol for best friend, and then the symbol for 'much', which Sandy flashed twice in emphasis. He waited patiently while Jack considered this, absently dropping a gentle snow in their wake as they drifted east. They'd planned to go to Istanbul, and Jack had planned on surprising the kids there with a half-inch of snow, at least.

'I don't love him that much more than everyone else, do I?' Jack said at last as they passed over into Germany, frowning hard. 'I didn't think I did, anyway.'

Sandy signed the symbol for 'much' again.

'Huh. And he – he really has no idea?'

Sandy nodded hopefully.

'Would he react badly if he did?' Jack asked, but the question wasn't really directed at Sandy. He tapped his fingers along his staff, snow falling a little heavier as he wondered. If Aster really didn't know at all – if he hadn't figured it out from all the years they'd known each other now – then he _might_ react pretty badly. Jack had just kind of assumed that he was both really really obvious, and that Aster didn't see the point in an out-and-out rejection, because of _course_ that wasn't something he wanted. He could just imagine Aster's face, his eyes wide and his ears flat, the way he'd say _Sorry, Frostbite, but – I, er…_

God, it would be awkward and awful, and who knew how long Jack would have to work at fixing one of the best friendships he'd ever had?

'He can _never_ find out,' Jack said abruptly, and Sandy sighed, as if this wasn't the reaction he'd wanted. 'No, I'm serious, Sandy. I thought he – but if he doesn't know, then _god,_ can you imagine how mad he'd be at me for never telling him? What kind of friend _does_ that?!'

Sandy was starting to look a little alarmed, and Jack realised the Wind was bucking anxiously around him, responding to his sudden horror the only way she knew how. He soothed her with a brush of fingers through her invisible current, and looked at Sandy as solemnly as he could. It had a pretty clear effect, from how Sandy stood up straight like he was about to be handed war orders.

'He's not allowed to know,' Jack stated clearly. 'I'm not losing my best friend just because he might think it's weird that I'm in love with him.'

He was starting to see why everyone else had so much trouble with the whole being-in-love-business.

Sandy made one last attempt – starting to sign an aster, followed by something that looked like a tear-drop on its point but not fully formed – and Jack shook himself. 'I'm going to go think about this,' he said, and smiled as cheerfully as he could. 'Remember, you can't tell anyone – you swore! Talk to you later!'

The Wind scooped him up and carried him high, higher in the air than he usually went, and they sped faster east than Sandy could possibly keep up with. He'd stay above the Pacific – he could avoid the islands, since Aster could only tunnel to land, and the relatively sparse population would mean he wasn't likely to run into one of the other Guardians.

He had to think. Even if that meant worrying everyone else for a while.

  
  


  
  


He spent four days drifting very slowly from the north end of the Pacific to the south. He slept when the sun was high, letting the Wind carry him, and when the moon was out, he'd watch the lights play over the waves.

Clearly, he'd missed something pretty big. No wonder everyone had been patting him pityingly for almost two months now; he'd been operating under the idea that Aster wasn't interested for so long that the idea that Aster just hadn't known was _terrifying_. And everyone else knew. God, he must have looked like an idiot for years.

Tooth had been absolutely right in her confusion. When Jack had been certain Aster knew, it had made sense to him to be content in what he had, to just try and make Aster happy. Now that he knew Aster had no idea, all of the emotions that Tooth had expected to find in him and had been shocked to find absent were tangling in the pit of his stomach. Nervous anxiety – what if he gave it away? – mixed with frustration aimed at himself – how could he have been so dumb about this? – and finally melted into a giant puddle of shame. Of course he was ashamed. He'd been essentially creeping on his best friend for years, and _he'd had no idea_.

He wasn't even sure which 'he' he was referring to, there.

It was the fourth day before he managed to settle himself again. He would just have to continue the way he had been, because otherwise Aster would suspect, and he wasn't going to lose his best friend for however long it took Aster to forgive him. He couldn't deal with that.

On the plus side, two positive things came out of all this. First, if Aster hadn't noticed so far, Jack thought as he crossed over the ice fields of Antarctica onto the continent proper, then hell, why would he notice now? Jack could keep acting the way he always had – comfortably, obliviously himself – and it would be fine.

And second, Sandy's remark that Aster _did_ like men meant that Jack's choices had expanded, as to who he could introduce Aster to next. In fact, he was certain this next one would be perfect.

He nodded to himself, satisfied at last, and finally tuned back into the world enough to realise he'd stumbled into one of the biggest natural blizzards he'd seen in decades.

'That one wasn't me,' he said to no one as he rose higher, intending to soar over the thick clouds entirely. It lacked the touch of tamer magic that always accompanied a storm he'd made, and carried all of the wild ferocity of Antarctica in its whipping winds.

Something felt wrong, though. Through the howling wind, he could hear just the faintest hint of something that didn't belong in the landscape, something too warm and living to be out all alone. Instantly, his teeth went on edge; there were a few sizeable towns on the continent now, and he couldn't tell if it was an adult who'd wandered into the storm, or a child. As horrific as a child being lost in a blizzard would be, at least he could help more directly. Especially in a snowy climate like this, where almost every child knew his name, he'd be able to fly down directly and carry the child to the nearest town.

If it was an adult, however, it became much more difficult, but not impossible.

He dropped like a stone through the stinging ice, and reached out with his storm sense as he landed – the best way to describe it was that he could feel every particle of the storm, and he was looking for where the storm was _not_. The not-cold was tall, at least in comparison to a child, and he cursed under his breath: an adult, great. No point in calling out.

He called the Wind to himself with a crook of his fingers, planting his staff in the snow beside him, and she answered with a quiet whisper. What he needed now were her gentle breezes, not her howling, and she knew it. 'Hey, girl,' he said, 'we've got a problem. Remember twenty years ago, when we practised how to get warmer?'

She gusted past his ear in agreement. Not that he'd expected her to forget (she was way smarter than a wind had a right to be).

Grinning at her before clenching his teeth, he held out his hands, and took the cold into himself.

He knew that the humans thought the cold wasn't something in its own right. According to their physics, cold was the absence of heat. But he knew for a fact that cold was its own presence, and he pulled it from her, leaving her as balmy as a late spring day and his own body shivering. His body heat, what little there was, was dropping dramatically, but the Wind wasted no time; she left him, carrying warmth in her arms, and soared speedily to the point of un-cold that was still moving. The connection of cold flowing away from her stretched out, requiring more concentration, and Jack wrapped his arms around himself futilely.

'Nearest town is two miles to your left,' he murmured, knowing she would hear, and she began to gently nudge the person she was surrounding in that direction.

Jack kept sucking in the cold, doing his best to redirect it to parts of the storm distant from both the lost person and the town that the Wind was angling towards. To his endless frustration, the adult began to struggle against the Wind's guidance, trying to return in the direction they'd been travelling before – towards Jack, which was the exact _wrong_ direction.

'Are you fucking serious?' Jack muttered furiously, nearly biting his tongue with how cold he was becoming. 'How long have you _been_ out here, if you can't even figure out 'follow the nice warm Wind to safety'?'

He wished Aster was here. Aster would be able to warm the person up without having to resort to turning himself to a popsicle. Jack bit back the desire – really, he wanted Aster around all the time, there was no point to whining about it right now. He pushed at the Wind, who began to drag more insistently at the lost person.

'Please, please, please,' Jack chanted under his breath, the cold finally creeping into his core, painful in a way that even winter nights in Siberia couldn't get. He couldn't move his fingers. 'Come on, you'll die out here like this, come on –'

Finally, the person began to follow the Wind. Maybe they were too tired to keep being stubborn, he thought with relief, and barely noticed when his knees buckled, the cold knocking his legs out from under him. He held on until he could feel the cold-void become part of the larger, insulated pocket of un-storm, and then let go, catching himself on his staff. The Wind raced back to him, shriekingly cold once more, and tossed him high into the air above the clouds to where the sun was shining. He let the sun into his limbs, the cold leeching away into the storm below, and he grinned weakly at the Wind keeping him steady. 'We did good,' he told his old friend tiredly. 'Really good. Can you hold me up a while? I need a nap after that.'

She whistled a no, and began to gently float him towards the town. Jack couldn't find the words to protest, his eyes having fallen closed, and he just hazily enjoyed the gentle rocking until she set him in a snowdrift just outside the town walls before leaving. That was annoying, but the snow was soft and weirdly warm, so he shuffled down a bit and let the cold keep bleeding out of him.

'…ack…!'

He turned his head in what he thought was the direction of the sound, then shrugged mentally, too wiped out to try it for real. Whoever it was could wait; he needed a nap after that, and the darkness behind his eyelids was terribly inviting.

'…old on, ple…'

Something was moving him, and he made a protesting whine. 'Come on, Wind,' he mumbled. 'I said I needed a nap.'

'Don't go to sleep,' the voice said a little more clearly, though it was still fading in and out, like someone playing with the volume on a television. Jack realised it was arms lifting him up, not the Wind, and they were muscled but soft, as if swathed in thick fur. The accent was really what clued him in, though.

'Aster?' he asked, struggling to stay awake. 'What are – are you doing here?'

'Looking for ye,' Aster replied, voice by turns too soft and too loud. 'Don't go to sleep, ye look half-frozen to death.'

'Already dead,' Jack said, trying for teasing but just sounding exhausted. Aster was warm, warmer even than the sunlight above the clouds, and much more comfortable than a snow-bank. Jack was having a lot of trouble remembering what was happening, though – he wasn't entirely sure why Aster was picking him up, much less why he'd been lying in a snow-bank.

'Don't say that,' Aster murmured urgently, his grip tightening and pressing Jack against his chest. 'We'll have you right in a mo'.'

'Whatever you say, Peony,' Jack said, the warmth seeping into him and clearing his head the tiniest bit. 'As long as I got that person back into town, I'm good.'

Aster went still beneath him for a moment, and Jack made a questioning sort of noise that made Aster shift his weight. 'He's fine, Jacko,' Aster said. 'Don't ye worry none. Let's just get ye somewhere warm, yeah?'

'Okay,' Jack agreed, because if Aster said so, then of course it was true. Aster was a terrible liar, even when it was just for a prank; mostly, he relied on subject changes to get by. Jack could trust in Aster, and he was reasonably sure as his brain went foggy again that whatever had just happened wasn't a prank, anyway. Pranks didn't end with Aster holding him like he was going to break in half.

Jack wondered if he'd meant _he_ was going to break in half, or Aster, but decided it wasn't really important.

There was a dropping sensation, and then Jack was shifted around, like he was being laid across Aster's shoulder. In fact, Jack thought there was an excellent chance that was indeed what had happened. 'I can fly,' he protested.

'Jacko, I'm barely trusting ye to breathe right now,' Aster replied, sounding matter-of-fact, but Jack thought he could hear a trace of panic under Aster's tone. Wow. He must really look like shit.

'Fine,' he griped, and let Aster carry him. He fell asleep somewhere between one step and the next.

  
  


  
  


When Jack awoke, he had no idea where he was for a moment. Above him, blue skies were purpling, so he guessed it was twilight; when he sat up, he found himself in the middle of a field, where dandelions waved warmly in the Wind as she began to nuzzle him. He knew this particular field, though, and relaxed. The Warren.

Wait. How'd he get from Antarctica to the Warren?

When had he been in Antarctica?

'Ye're awake.'

'Yeah? I didn't notice. Is grass green, too?' Jack replied, grinning automatically at Aster's voice. It was a bit of a Pavlovian response at this point.

Aster sat next to him, though, and his face was tight, his ears rigid.

Jack frowned and said, 'Uh, what's up, Buttercup?'

Aster rolled his eyes, but the tension remained. 'What happened to ye, Jack?'

'What do you –' Jack began to ask, but the memories were creeping in, and he paused to think them over. It took a few moments, but finally he had them all in order. The flight over the Pacific. The conversation with Sandy. The lost human. 'Huh,' Jack said at last, and gave Aster a helpless sort of grin. 'That was a shitty couple of days.'

Instead of laughing the way he'd hoped, Aster's face remained unchanged. His ears tightened a degree. 'What happened?' he repeated.

Jack was torn. On the one hand, he _hated_ not telling Aster things. The only stuff he kept to himself were things he was doing as a prank (or setting Aster up with someone), and things he thought would make him look stupid (see: storms in Norway for an example). And there was a part of him, a really big part, that just wanted to admit it all. Aster wouldn't take it _too_ badly, he figured. Sure, things might be awkward for a decade, but… Jack shook his head. He couldn't lose Aster, not for that long, no matter how little time that really was in the grand scheme of things.

'Jack?'

On the other hand, well. This would make him look stupid one way or another. Why make it worse when he could play it down?

'Sandy and I were talking,' Jack began at last, just when Aster was starting to look _really_ concerned about his continued silence. 'And he said some – he said some stuff I had to think about.'

'Some stuff,' Aster repeated, not sounding like he was buying it.

Well, tough shit, because it was the _truth_ , even if it wasn't the details. 'Some stuff,' Jack agreed. 'I needed time to think it over.'

'Is that why ye disappeared for four days?' Aster demanded. 'Bloody oath, Jack, I was terrified ye'd gone and hurt yerself!'

Jack winced, because, well, he _had_. Just not as early as Aster thought.

'Jack?' Aster pressed, squinting now as his ears tilted forward dangerously.

'Well, uh, after I spent a few days thinking – don't give me that look, Aster, it was some big stuff! – I ended up in Antarctica. There was a blizzard. Wasn't one of mine. And someone was lost in it.'

Aster was watching him with eyes that betrayed neither anger nor any other emotion, and Jack tapped his fingers on his staff, comforted that he'd at least managed to keep hold of it in all the ruckus. 'So I, uh,' Jack took a deep breath, then said in one big rush, 'kind of took-the-cold-of-the-Wind-in-so-that-she-could-guide-the-poor-guy-home. I've done it before, but never in Antarctica, and never during a blizzard like that, so it got really cold, and, uh, we got him home, I guess, and then she set me down, then you showed up, so you know the rest of it.'

'Wait, slow down,' Aster said, holding up a paw. 'Ye did what now?'

'I took the cold in from the Wind,' Jack said, pre-emptively flinching at the look on Aster's face and looking down at his hands. 'So she'd be warm. So that guy would be okay.'

He looked up, and – yep, there was Disappointed Bunny Face. Not just disappointed, either, but a little angry, and a little horrified.

'Ye nearly froze yerself solid,' he said flatly, 'and ye're telling me ye did that on purpose?'

Jack hunched over. 'I'm fine now,' he muttered.

'Jack, I was looking for ye for three days,' Aster said, voice growing in anger and volume. 'Sandy said ye'd run off, upset, and when I do find ye, ye're half-dead in a snow-bank! And don't make a crack about being full-dead already, I can see it on yer face!'

Jack shut his mouth.

'Jack, ye nearly _killed_ yerself,' Aster snapped out, gaining a really impressive head of steam as he rant continued on. 'Ye can't just _do_ things like that – the kids rely on ye and –'

'So what was I supposed to do?' Jack bit out, trying to keep a lid on his temper, but this wasn't fair. 'Just let that guy freeze to death? He was too far away from the town, and heading in the wrong direction!'

'Ye should have gone for help!'

'From who, Aster?' Jack demanded. 'I was the only one around! And if I can't handle saving someone from a blizzard, who can, huh? It's my job!'

'Jack, ye could have died, and all for –'

'For what, huh?' Jack cut off furiously. 'For what, Bunny? Just some guy? Well, maybe it wasn't the guy's brightest move to head out in a storm, but for fuck's sake, _it's my job to help them_! I don't feel bad for doing what I had to do!'

'Ye should!' Aster argued. 'We were so worried, Jack, ye have no idea –'

'I go off for days all the time, okay? What was so different about this time?!'

'Ye were upset!'

Jack blinked, startled out of his haze of anger. 'What?'

'Ye were upset, and ye don't do that anymore,' Aster said, voice low and still so angry. 'Ye don't run off, anymore. Ye promised me after the last fight we got into ye wouldn't run off when ye were hurting anymore, and ye only kept the promise for what, thirty years?'

Jack flinched. 'That wasn't it, Bunny,' he said quietly. 'I wasn't – fuck, I wasn't _mad_ at anybody.'

'Then ye should have come to me,' Aster snarled after a full body flinch. 'Like ye _said_ ye would.'

'I couldn't!' Jack snapped, frustrated again. 'I couldn't! I know I promised, but that was entirely different and you know it –'

'How? How is it different?' Aster demanded. 'Make me understand.'

'It was about me, okay?' Jack said, digging a hand into his hair and tugging fruitlessly. 'It was about me, and something that I fucked up, and I didn't want to talk to anyone, alright, Bunny?'

Aster flinched again, and Jack paused. 'What?'

'Stop that,' Aster said, and this time it was his voice that was quiet. 'I asked ye to use me name. Don't stop using it just 'cause we're fighting.'

Jack was the one who flinched this time – he hadn't even noticed the change. He pulled his hand from his hair and dropped it into his lap. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I guess I – I don't know why I did that. I think maybe I thought you wouldn't want me to use it anymore if we were fighting.'

Aster sighed, and looked at Jack with a dimness in his eyes and a droop to his ears. 'I reckon we've bodged this convo up pretty badly,' he said.

'Maybe a little,' Jack said, offering up a weak grin.

'Look, I don't want ye to think I'm angry because ye did the right thing,' Aster began, and set his paw on Jack's shoulder. 'I'm not. Without ye –' he swallowed, looked away, and then said in a voice a bit thicker than it had been before, 'I don't think that bloke knew what he was getting into. Maybe he thought the storm wasn't so bad, I dunno. But he – he'dve died without ye, and that would have been terrible. For everyone.'

'Then why were you yelling at me?'

'Because I hate the thought of ye hurting,' Aster said simply. 'For any reason. And – I'm not good at this bulldust, ye know that.'

Jack scowled, but his heart wasn't in it – mostly because his heart was in his throat. 'You still shouldn't have yelled.'

'No, I shouldn't have,' Aster nodded. 'I'm – sorry. For that. And for other things.'

'I'm sorry for calling you Bunny,' Jack answered, fiddling with a knot on his staff, 'and for not coming to you. Are we –' he swallowed back his heart, or tried his best. 'Are we good, or…?'

'Oh, Jack,' Aster sighed. 'We're fine. I was just worried.'

Then, to Jack's eternal shock, Aster pulled him into a tight hug. Even after a fight like that, Jack still had enough presence of mind to hug back; this kind of affection was rare from Aster, and he'd soak it in while he could.

'I'm so glad ye're alright,' Aster murmured softly, and Jack bit his lip.

'Me, too,' he agreed, but inside, he thought.

And if there was a tiny spark of hope in him, he crushed it flat with the weight of all sixty years past. _And all our days ahead_ , Jack thought fiercely, face buried in Aster's fur. _I'm not giving you up just for a chance at something I know you don't want._

 


	4. Brightness

After that, things went back to normal, sort of. Jack felt very much like there was a fragile element to all of his interactions with Aster now – Aster seemed to be unwilling to joke as much, worried more than he'd ever been about causing offence or treading on the things Jack wasn't telling him. For his part, Jack felt like he was lying to Aster, which did nothing but make him feel guilty. Over the next two weeks, they saw each other once. Jack told himself it was because the eggplants were at a delicate stage.

He felt like he was lying to himself, too.

But, regardless, he still had a plan, and it was a good plan. The thought had come to him on that long flight over the Pacific, and while he wasn't sure yet how to put it into action, he knew what to do once he got Aster there.

He hadn't expected Aster to hand him the solution.

'Ye can't make me go alone,' Aster said, looking at Jack with wide eyes. Jack had dropped into the Warren at last, citing a series of snowstorms over the Sierras as his reason for being so distant, and thankfully, Aster had accepted it.

'I dunno, Violet,' Jack said, trying his best to hide his glee behind a frown. 'Hawaii's a little warm for me. Even in February.'

'But if ye don't come with me,' Aster said, making a face, 'Then it'll just be me, Tooth, and Durga. And since those two started their thing last month, I'd be a third wheel.'

'We'd be third wheels together,' Jack pointed out. 'Besides, I still don't think Tooth will be able to refrain from smacking me.'

'Ye're directly responsible for her getting the girl of her dreams,' Aster said dryly. 'I'd be more worried about her hugging ye to death. And besides, it's a festival to celebrate rain, ye're not going to have to worry about the heat.'

'Hot, humid air doesn't sound like much fun,' Jack said, but faked a put upon sigh when Aster opened his mouth. 'Fine, god. Just don't say I don't do anything for you.'

'I'd never,' Aster said, looking hilariously relieved. 'Thank god, Frostbite, ye have no idea how little I wanted to go.'

'So why'd you agree?'

'Tooth wanted, and I quote, moral support,' Aster rolled his eyes as Jack laughed.

'And she picked _you_?'

'Oi! I'm very supportive!'

'Oh, I'm sure,' Jack said sweetly. 'So, do I want to ask if you gave a goddess of war a shovel speech, or…?'

'Couldn't leave it up to North this time, could I?' Aster said, grinning. 'What with him being both their mates, he couldn't give it the justice it deserves.'

Jack raised an eyebrow. 'And what did you threaten a woman who's levelled an entire army of demons in one strike with?'

'I'd flatten the Himalayas, and blame it on her chakrams going haywire,' Aster said, looking very self-satisfied, and Jack laughed again, delighted. Things had been strained, lately, but make no mistake, he loved everything about Aster, right down to the ridiculous, impossible threats.

'I'll just bet,' he said, and poked Aster's shoulder. 'So how long did you give me to get ready before this thing? An hour, right?'

Aster's ears flattened in record time, and Jack laughed again. 'I know you too well,' he said, but in his head, he said _I'll never know you well enough_.

Clearly, the thought must have crossed his face, changed his expression somehow, because Aster gave him a curious look. Jack waved it away with a hand, and took to the air. This was perfect. Somehow, Aster had found a way to get them both to Hawaii, amongst a bunch of other people, and provided Jack with the perfect cover.

After all, Jack knew a _lot_ of people now. Chances were pretty good that the one he was thinking of would be present.

'Well, we'd better get moving,' Jack said, taking care to sound extra grouchy about it.

'Ye're a lifesaver, Jacko.'

'I'll believe it when I see it,' Jack replied, grinning, and though there was a mysterious twitch to Aster's ears, his smile was genuine.

They left the Warren at speed and arrived on Maui with more than enough time to spare. The festival space was deep within the rainforest, hidden from human eyes, and was in a wide clearing, ringed by as of yet unlit torches – sundown wasn't for another half hour, and this close to the Equator, that meant it was still bright out. Tooth was there early, green and purple and golden feathers at home in the vibrant landscape, and she looked absolutely wretched with nerves.

'How are ye this nervous?' Aster asked, sounding exasperated. 'This is yer third date!' Jack hid his grin; yeah, Aster wasn't the best at being supportive in situations like this. He was lucky it was endearing.

'But this is a _big_ date,' Tooth hissed. 'You know what they say about the third date.'

'What,' Jack interjected, 'not to put out until then?'

Tooth coloured scarlet, though Aster looked amused.

'Come on, Tooth,' Jack said comfortingly, 'you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Durga doesn't seem like she'd be a prick about it, either –'

'Oh, _hush_ , Jack!' Tooth snapped, frazzled. 'That isn't the problem at all!'

'So you're worried that _she_ won't want to put out?'

Tooth looked scandalised, and Aster had to look away to hide his smile. 'Jack!'

'Because, I gotta tell you, Tooth, that's not going to be a problem,' Jack said, breezily ignoring her fluster. 'You look great. She always looks great. You're going to have fun tonight, regardless of if you have _fun_ tonight –'

' _JACK!_ '

'– and besides, remember what I was telling you at North's?' Jack continued. It felt dangerous, to talk about it near Aster, but it was the only thing Jack could think of to say. 'The romantic stuff isn't the important thing. It happens or it doesn't. What's important is that you get to hang out with somebody you care about.'

'That is a paraphrase,' Tooth said primly, but she looked to be calming down.

'Well, the situations aren't exactly the same, are they?' Jack asked, smiling. Aster was looking between them curiously, and Jack shook his head at Tooth when she opened her mouth. She nodded, and now Aster was frowning.

'It was about a friend of mine,' Jack invented quickly. 'You remember Ismene?'

'The dryad, right,' Aster said, and clearly there was still something ticking him off about the arboretum visit several months past, because his jaw tightened. 'Romantic stuff, then?'

'What – no, not me and Ismene!' Jack exclaimed, a little horrified at the thought. 'Oh god, no way. She'd eat me alive.'

The tension in Aster's jaw passed, and Jack added, 'No, we'd been talking about one of her old partners, and she'd given me some advice, and I passed it on to Tooth.'

_Forgive me, Ismene_ , he thought quickly as Aster nodded. This lying thing was getting exhausting. He hoped it would get easier over time, because unless something catastrophic happened, he didn't intend to ever tell Aster what was really going on.

Tooth opened her mouth to say something else, but she was interrupted by two voices calling to them – one for Tooth, a rumbling voice that Jack could hear as a blue shock to his system, it was so happy, and one for him.

He and Tooth turned in unison, Tooth's face gone pink. Walking towards them were two people – the many-armed and shining Durga, who had eyes only for Tooth, and a man who looked so delighted that Jack thought he could see it glowing off him.

'Jack Frost!' the man repeated, leaving Durga's side and striding over to him with a huge smile across his dark face. 'I never thought I'd see the day when you came back to our islands, not after Pele nearly crisped you!'

Jack winced, but it was good-natured. 'Chin,' he said, and clasped the man's hand back. 'Come on, that was back in the 1960s, you'd think she'd get over it eventually.'

Chin snorted. 'Pele is great, but forgiveness isn't a virtue she's ever had a use for.'

Jack grinned at him; Chin was a kahuna of Hawaii, and one of the last remaining great wizards of the age, North excepted. He certainly looked nothing like the other wizards, because he kept his face clean-shaven and didn't look a day over forty, his skin was thick with tattoos that gleamed strangely in the light, and he still lived among the humans. 'Didn't think I'd see you here,' Jack said nonchalantly. 'Last I heard, you were studying volcano magic, so I thought a rain festival was outside of your focus.'

'I've never missed one yet,' Chin laughed. 'I met this delightful lady –' he gestured to Durga, who nodded graciously, 'on my way in, and introduced myself. She said she was coming to meet some of the Guardians, so I had to come check.' He bowed deeply to Tooth, who giggled a bit. 'After all, it's an honour to meet any of you.'

'Ye've got friends in all sorts of places, don't ye, Frostbite?' Aster asked, and to Jack's relief, he didn't look put off by the addition to their party.

'He's a friendly sort,' Chin said, and smiled at Aster. 'My name is Hua Chin. I'm guessing you'd be the infamous E. Aster Bunnymund?'

'I dunno about infamous,' Aster said, a small smile breaking out on his face, 'but ye'd have the right end of the stick. I'm Bunny.'

'I've been studying earth-engineering for a few years now, and I'd love to ask you a few questions,' Chin said. 'If you wouldn't mind, of course.'

'What kind of questions?' Aster asked, looking curious (and a bit impressed).

'Well, first off – I heard that the earth was originally egg-shaped. Is that true? And how did you redistribute the mass?'

Aster looked intrigued by the question, and Jack looked on with a great glee. He hadn't had to do a thing – Chin's naturally effusive personality and curious nature was drawing out Aster's passion for his various pursuits, and as they moved into a technical sounding discussion, Jack sighed happily.

'Jack?'

He turned to face Tooth, who was watching him with a strange face. Durga stood beside her, height utterly dwarfing Tooth's tiny frame, but she too watched him; Jack tilted his head.

'What?'

'Can I talk to you a moment?'

'Sure,' Jack shrugged, and followed them both to the other side of the clearing. Other spirits, many from the Hawaiian islands and from other island chains that dotted the Pacific, were streaming in, and he lost Aster and Chin in the growing crowd. That was alright, he told himself. It was better if they had some time to get to know one another – he certainly didn't expect them to start dating tonight, but the best relationships were born from friendships, and they seemed to get along.

Tooth set a hand on one of Durga's arms and smiled up at her. Jack had the disconcerting experience of watching a war goddess melt a bit as Tooth asked sweetly, 'Could you go get us some drinks, dear? I just want to ask Jack something quickly.'

'Of course,' Durga said, and bent over, nearly in half, to press a kiss to Tooth's cheek. Tooth went a bright red, but Jack managed not to chuckle until Durga was out of earshot.

'You hush,' Tooth reprimanded as he dissolved into giggles.

'Man, I don't think you have to worry about anyone putting out tonight,' he managed to breath out between cackles, and Tooth chose to ignore him handily.

'So,' she began once he'd quieted some. 'Sandy was right.'

Jack's laughter died immediately. 'That _jerk_ ,' he said, staring at her. 'I swore him to secrecy!'

'Some things go beyond the bonds of secrecy,' Tooth replied. 'Like when one of your friends is making himself miserable.'

'I'm not making myself miserable!' Jack protested.

'Then why are you trying to set Aster up with someone else, instead of approaching him yourself?'

'Because I'm not dumb, Tooth,' Jack said, and snorted derisively at her glare. 'Look – just picture this for a second, would you? Say two friends have been friends for decades. One of them's in love with the other, but doesn't say anything, because he kind of assumes he's as obvious as a lighthouse on a clear night.'

Tooth nodded, frowning now.

'This goes on for years,' Jack continued. 'And then Friend B finds out that Friend A has no idea at all, and that he's been kind of been creepily, secretly in love with his best friend for ages. So, hypothetically, he goes and tells Friend A, because that would be the right thing to do.'

Tooth opened her mouth to say something, but Jack barrelled on,

'Then Friend A is super uncomfortable, because that's awful, and creepy, and really weird besides. Their friendship might not end, but is kind of forever ruined? So hypothetical situation 1: bad.'

'Jack –'

'So, instead, hypothetically friend B, who's been trying to set friend A up with someone else anyway, continues with his plan. Friend A gets to be happy with someone _and_ have his best friend, and friend B can get over himself and go back to living the way he did before – making his friend happy and enjoying his life, even if friend A is with someone else.'

'Oh, Jack,' Tooth said, looking horrified. 'How can you know that's how it would go?'

'That's the thing, Tooth,' he said as Durga returned. 'I don't _want_ to know. I'd rather go the sure route. It's been enough for me for years, you know. It's no one else's fault if I reacted badly to some news, right? If I just keep at it, then it'll be fine.'

Durga was watching him again, and Jack wondered how much Tooth had told her. 'Those do not sound like the words of a warrior,' she said at last.

'Well, I'm not a warrior,' Jack shrugged. 'Not like the other Guardians. They all fought and all this crazy stuff against Pitch a long time ago, and I helped out the last time, but I'm not really made for fighting, you know? I'm made for Guarding, and well,' he swirled a snowflake to life on his palm, glowing a cheerful blue. 'For happiness. I guess my happiness just won't look like everybody else's.'

Tooth opened her mouth to argue, but Durga placed a hand on her shoulder.

'He's chosen his path,' she said quietly. 'We know war, and we know hardship, and so does he; but it's the right of every soldier to choose what comes after war. Just because we chose to find new things to fight for does not mean we should judge the man who decides to live simply and well when the battle is past.'

Tooth nodded, and Jack smiled at Durga. 'Knew I liked you for a reason,' he said. 'So don't make me not like you, huh? I may not be a soldier, exactly, but I _am_ a Guardian. And Tooth's my friend – I protect my friends. Don't make me regret trusting you.'

'I will do my best,' Durga replied solemnly, then smiled, the expression like the first dawn on a battlefield. 'At last, my collection is complete. One threat from each of the Guardians. I feel honoured.'

Jack laughed, both at Durga's words and the way Tooth spluttered, and accepted a drink from one of Durga's hands.

He left them after a few minutes – he didn't want to interrupt their date too long, after all – and made his way around the party. He didn't know a lot of spirits here, but there were a bunch of them willing to talk and introduce themselves, and so Jack just enjoyed the festival. A fine drizzle began to fall, and when the water touched the unlit torches, they blazed to life, red and yellow, green and blue by turns. It was great, and Jack just looked on with a smile.

Twice he passed by Aster and Chin, and both times Aster gave him a little wave and Chin gave a nod, but they were engrossed in their conversation, which had turned from engineering problems to Chin's study of ancient Lemurian ship construction. It felt simultaneously good – thank goodness, he'd finally picked someone Aster seemed to connect with – and, well.

Jack would be lying if he said he didn't feel a little bit like some part of his soul was curling up, away from the light, but he was lying all over the place lately, so he figured he could keep this one up for a while.

The sun disappeared. The rain came on harder. People began to dance together in the wide flat of the clearing, and still Chin and Aster chatted, set apart from the others and heads bent together. Occasionally, Jack could hear Aster's laughter ringing out – he'd always be able to pick out Aster's voice, no matter how many others tried to cover it up – and accepted dance invitations from three different spirits, spinning around and laughing himself.

He had fun, he knew he did. There was a hollow feeling in his stomach, but instead of ignoring it, Jack accepted that it was there. It was going to be there for a long time.

He left at last when the dancing began to die down, when the festival began to turn to quiet talking and laughter, and he bid goodbye to Tooth and Durga.

'Shouldn't you say goodbye to Bunny?' Tooth asked, looking at him.

'Nah, it's good,' Jack said, falsely cheerful. The hollow feeling was growing. 'He knows where to find me.'

Tooth gave him one more sad look, but Durga was beside her, and Tooth's sympathy for him was no match to the way she glowed faintly blue whenever Durga was near. Jack wished them both a good night, meaning it with everything he had in him, and took to the air.

Below him, he could just make out Aster and Chin, still talking, and he smiled to himself. At least he had finally gotten something right.

  
  


  
  


March came on, and winter was ending soon. Jack knew that, and began to rein in the storms and such on the northern hemisphere, just as he began to turn his gaze southward. It would be another two months or so until he could really get started, but that was alright.

Though it was still cold, very little snow fell. He just didn't feel up to making storms, lately. He dropped a few snow-days when Tooth asked if he was alright, to throw her off the scent, but that left him more tired than it should. He spent most of his time in Northern Canada, where it would be freezing for a while yet, and tried not to think about it. It, of course, being the fact that he'd seen Aster twice in the past three weeks, and both times had been painful.

The first time, Aster had thanked him for keeping him company at the festival, and talked enthusiastically about Chin; they'd hit it off spectacularly, and Aster had offered Chin the use of his library to aid in his current research project. That was _huge_ , Aster letting anyone other than the Guardians in his Warren, and even as Jack had been delighted at the idea, he'd felt an awful pang in his chest.

The second time had been a few days after, a quick thing where Aster had found him out in Vienna and told him he might be out of contact for a few days – the eggplants were in a delicate stage, and needed constant care. Jack had nodded, understanding, and then Aster had gone.

Two weeks had passed since, and though Jack thought Aster had maybe tried to find him again, Jack didn't want to see him right now. He kind of didn't want to see anyone, right now. The only company that didn't grate on him or make his chest hurt as though he'd been kicked was the Wind, and she was happy to scatter his scent in all directions, even if she made it clear that she didn't approve of why she was doing it.

She was emphatic, actually, about wanting to see Aster again – Jack didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the times she'd tried to subtly blow him off course in the direction of Australia. She might not be a person the way Jack was used to thinking of, but she liked Aster, and loved Jack, and wanted him to be happy. Jack just couldn't find a way to make her understand that seeing Aster right now was both the best thing and the worst thing.

There was a crack right down the middle of him, and Jack was terrified that if he saw Aster now, it would all come spilling out, the story from the very beginning, because it had to be better than this unknown.

'I chose this, though,' he said to the Wind one day, either the twentieth or the twenty-first of March, he was unsure. He was trying, once again, to explain why he was hiding from everyone, and so he and his Wind were walking through the thick forests of Saskatchewan, watching the snow and ice slowly drip in the first breath of the day's warmth. 'Like, maybe I could have said something earlier, but I chose this.'

She rattled the branches nearest her agitatedly, dumping thick,wet snow on Jack's head. He shook it off with a frown.

'Seriously,' he said. 'I chose this. I wanted to be his friend more than anything else. That's the most important thing.'

She nudged him hard, and if she'd had a voice, Jack thought she might have said _you're avoiding him. Seems like you aren't being his friend right now anyway._

Unfortunately, Jack knew that was his own mind, so he couldn't be annoyed with her.

'I know,' he sighed. 'It'll get easier, though. I promise.'

'What will get easier?'

Jack, to his eternal shame, shrieked and spun up into the air, pointing his staff at the voice. When he saw who it was (not that the accent had left any doubt), he had the odd experience of feeling his heart leap and sink at the same time.

'Aster?'

'Who else?' Aster huffed, coming to a stop below Jack, glaring up at him. The Wind sang around him in delight, ruffling his fur and nuzzling his cheeks without shame. Aster looked unmoved, his green eyes brighter than anything in the landscape and trained on Jack. 'Get down here, ye gumby.'

Jack descended nervously, but set his staff down and crouched atop it, needing to be of an eye level with Aster right now. 'Hey there, Marigold,' he said, and smiled; even scared out of his wits, the way Aster wrinkled his nose was enough to make Jack's heart sing.

'Ye want to tell me why ye're running from me?' Aster asked, ears flicking up and around. 'Cause I've been trying like mad to catch ye for almost ten days now, and yer Wind keeps throwing me off the trail, which isn't an accident. Easter's coming up – ye know I don't have a lot of time to spare.'

Jack flinched. 'Sorry,' he said, hurt. 'I – I didn't mean – you don't have to worry, I'm fine. You should be getting ready.'

Aster sighed. 'Ye know that's not the important thing here.'

'It's the most important thing,' Jack said, a bit agape, because Aster saying Easter wasn't important meant the world was ending. 'Look, I'm fine, see? You should go back.'

'It'll keep, Easter's not till next month and ye know that,' Aster argued.

'Still,' Jack insisted. He stood up and picked up his staff with his toes, passing it up into his hand without moving from his place in the air. 'You don't have time for this. And I was meaning to go give Maine one last hurrah, so –'

'Ye were not, and ye know it,' Aster snapped, losing his patience at last. 'Will ye stay in one place for one bleeding moment? Why are ye _running away_ from me? How'd I piss ye off – can ye tell me that, at least?!'

'I'm not mad at you, Aster!' Jack said, horrified. 'How can you think that?'

'What else am I supposed to think, Jack?' Aster demanded. 'Ye keep running, and ye won't talk to me, and ye've been acting strange for _months_ –'

'I'm…' Jack started, but faltered, because Aster looked _hurt_ , like Jack had called him terrible names or made fun of his holiday and meant it. The crack down the centre of him widened, gaping open like a wound, and Jack realised the awful noise he heard a second later came from him. 'Oh, god, Aster, I'm so sorry, this isn't how this was supposed to go –'

'What was supposed to go?' Aster asked, ears dropping from their angry forward tilt to a dejected droop. 'What are ye talking about, Frostbite?'

Jack dropped to the earth at last, feeling so heavy with all his secrets that he felt like he couldn't stay in the air.

It was too late. They were at a breaking point, and it was Jack's fault one way or another. He had no choice but to come clean now; maybe, someday, Aster would forgive him.

'It's a long story,' Jack said weakly, and Aster crossed his arms.

'I'm not going anywhere.'

Jack dropped his head forward, and Aster sighed. 'Come on, then,' he said. 'S'getting a little wet here. Let's find somewhere dry to talk.'

Jack nodded, and followed Aster down into a tunnel, and back out a few hundred miles south, in the middle of what seemed to be a field of boulders. Most of the snow was gone, leaving the tops of the stones clear and dry, and he took a seat beside Aster on the flat surface of one of the biggest boulders.

'Please tell me what's wrong,' Aster said, after they'd sat quietly for a few minutes. 'I'm starting to wonder if it's something I can't fix.'

Jack snorted, but it wasn't laughter, not really. 'You don't have to,' he said, rubbing his thumb over the ridges and whorls of his staff. 'It's not your fault. It's mine.'

'What is?'

Aster's voice was gentle, and Jack drew his knees up to his chest, not looking over. 'I… it's hard.'

'I figured.'

'Haha,' Jack muttered. 'It's like – it's like this. I want you to be happy, right? But I keep fucking it up. First with the dryads, then with Perri, then –'

'Wait, what's this about the dryads?'

'I wanted you to like Ismene,' Jack said quietly, staring at a crevice in the rock in front of them. 'I wanted – no, wait, it started way before that. Back with the Groundhog.'

'What did he say to ye?' Aster asked, and there was a low growl, kept firmly in check, in the back of his voice.

'He, uh, asked for a date. I said no, obviously,' Jack said, and rolled his eyes. 'He's a literal ground-hog, and a prick besides. But then, he said how the only thing spirits look for in each other is power, and that was just – so wrong.'

He chanced a glance at Aster, who had flinched and tensed in rapid succession. 'There's a lot of reasons to like people,' Jack continued. 'But he kind of pointed at you and said you're like the hottest of all tamales –'

Aster snorted, and Jack grinned, even as the pain in his chest reminded him that this might be the last time he heard Aster laugh for a long time. 'But it wasn't about _you_ , or even the way you look. It was about your _job_. Which, again, so _so_ wrong.' Jack tapped his fingers on his staff. 'So I thought maybe that was why you didn't have anyone. Because no one was looking at you for the right reasons. So that's where the dryads came in, and Perri – I wanted you to like Ismene, and when that didn't work out, I introduced you to Perri, which, uh, didn't work out either.'

Aster was watching him curiously, but Jack needed to finish this now or he'd never be able to get the words out again. 'So I talked to Sandy about it, and he said that you weren't just interested in girls. Which is why I introduced you to Chin, though that was half my work and half just luck.'

Aster reared back, startled. 'Wait, ye were trying to set me up with _Chin_?' he said, like he couldn't believe it.

'What's wrong with Chin?'

'Nothing's wrong with him,' Aster said, looking like he was still trying to process all this. 'But I couldn't – definitely not. Bright thing, though. Was thinking of mentoring him.'

'What?' Jack said, staring back. 'So, the library –'

'So he could research to his heart's content,' Aster said. 'Haven't taken on a student since – bloody oath, before the last Golden Age, I don't think.'

'Damn it,' Jack said, before he could think better of it, and to his surprise, Aster laughed again.

'So ye were trying to set me up?' Aster asked, looking at Jack with a strange, half-fond half-exasperated look.

'Kind of?' Jack hedged. 'It's like – I wanted you to be happy. I wanted someone to make you happy.'

'I _am_ happy, Jack,' Aster said firmly. 'I've got me friends, and me work. That's been enough for me for a long time. Didn't want anything else for a long time.' There was a wry twist to his face that Jack couldn't understand. 'I'm happy, Jack, don't ye worry none. Is that really why ye've been crook lately?'

'It's just – it seemed wrong to me,' Jack said helplessly, trying to answer honestly without answering directly. 'You know, that people wanted you for all the wrong reasons.'

'Not sure there's a right reason, to be honest with ye,' Aster said with a chuckle and another fond look. 'Bit grumpy in me old age.'

'That's not true at all,' Jack disagreed before he could bite back on the words. 'There's a lot of good reasons, you – you _pessimist_ , god.'

Aster gave him a look that was patently disbelieving and dismissively amused at the same time, and Jack bristled. 'What, you think I'm lying?'

'I think ye're me friend, and ye think more highly of me than ye should,' Aster replied, rolling his eyes, and the crack in Jack split wide open.

'Oh, you asked for it,' Jack said, and began to list them off.

Maybe it wasn't every reason someone else would love Aster, because hey, Jack wasn't everyone. But he also wasn't freaking _blind_ , no matter what Sandy said, and he wasn't going to let Aster think the worst of himself.

The list was long. From the precisely timed clever insults that delighted Jack down to his bones, to the absolutely amazing chocolate he made, and the care that went into each one. The carefully detailed eggs and all of the _time_ Aster was willing to sink into them. The way he teased shy kids into bravery and gave brave kids in shitty situations something to look forward to, to hope for. The way he laughed when he meant it, and even the way he laughed when he didn't.

His green eyes would light up when he had a good idea, and seemed to glow when he was irritated or excited. His paws could carry anything and make it look precious in his fingers. His nose would twitch in surprise, his toes tapped when he was impatient, and Jack could always tell when he'd gotten a good prank in, because Aster's mouth would quirk up against his will. He'd just gotten halfway through explaining the thoughtful way Aster would tilt his ears towards whoever was speaking to hear what was being said, when he realised Aster was staring at him with his mouth open.

Jack trailed off mid-word. 'What?' he asked testily, when Aster had said nothing for a long moment, green eyes wide and getting wider all the time.

'Are ye in love with me, Jack?'

Jack held still.

Well, he'd _meant_ to tell Aster. Here it was. That didn't mean he had to do it as anything other than himself.

'Well, yeah. It's not that weird, is it? You haven't been listening at all, have you?' Jack couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of him at the look of bewilderment on Aster's face, even though it felt inappropriate. 'Everyone's a little bit in love with you, Aster.'

'But – _ye_ ,' Aster said, like he was sounding the words out, 'ye're in love with me?'

'Okay, I guess it is a little weird,' Jack said, and shrugged. He'd known it wouldn't go well. He'd just have to do his best to deal with the aftermath. 'Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, Primrose.'

'It is a very big deal,' Aster disagreed, and leaned forward, and kissed him.

Jack had no idea what to do with this. On the one hand – uh. Brain short-circuit, no external input except Aster's lips on his own, which was, oh, wow. That was something, huh?

On the other hand – oh. Aster was kissing him – _kissing him._ Nope, there was the only one way to interpret this.

Jack flung himself forward at last, wrapping his arms around Aster's neck and bowling him over flat onto the rock. Aster laughed into Jack's mouth, and it was the most carefree sound Jack had ever heard in Aster's voice. Aster kissed him again, the soft fur of his lips a little damp and smooth against Jack's, and wow. Wow. Jack was having a lot of trouble thinking about anything else, other than Aster's mouth against his and the word 'wow' over and over again.

'Jack,' Aster murmured, pulling away, and Jack chased his mouth with his own, because there was not a single iota of Jack Frost that wanted to talk right now, not when he could be kissing E. Aster Bunnymund. 'Jack,' Aster laughed, and kissed Jack firmly before sitting up, bearing his weight with ease. 'We still need to talk.'

'Wow, can we not?' asked Jack, breathless. 'Because my mouth has better things to do.'

Aster's ears flattened so quickly that Jack didn't even see them move, and that was _definitely_ a hint of red creeping through the short fur of his nose.

'Jack, I owe ye an explanation,' he said, 'and I need ye to listen.'

Despite his embarrassment, he looked serious, and so Jack nodded and went to back off. To his surprise, Aster caught him by the waist and hauled him nearer, until he was settled in Aster's lap.

'I didn't say move, ye dill,' and to Jack's delight, Aster kissed his cheek. 'Just – listen, alright?'

'Okay,' Jack replied, sounding (and feeling) pretty dazed. He was, uh, sitting in Aster's lap. Aster. Who _wanted him there_. He'd never bothered to really imagine what it would be like, to be with Aster like this, but if he had (and dreams didn't count, did they?) he never would have thought Aster would be a cuddler. Not like this – not untouchable, distant Aster.

'Jack,' Aster said, and Jack came back to himself to see Aster watching him with a mortified fondness. 'Flattering as that is, need ye to focus here.'

Jack shook himself, and nodded. 'Yeah, okay. I'm here.'

Aster smiled, but it quickly took on a bitter tinge. 'I think I've been letting ye run around with the idea that this is all yer fault for too long, Jacko,' he said. 'Starting back with the dryads – that was on me. I looked up from me convo with Ismene and saw all of the dryads draped over ye. I, er, have to admit to being a bit jealous sometimes.' He looked at Jack sheepishly. 'Even when I don't really have a claim.'

The thought of that made a shiver run down Jack's spine, and it definitely was the good kind. He could think of a lot of ways in which he was okay with Aster being jealous sometimes.

'After that, I… I didn't want to give meself away, so I disappeared for a few days to get me head on straight. I know,' he said at Jack's sharp look, his ears flat and tucked in, the very picture of contrition. 'I'm a bloody hypocrite, and I'm sorry for yelling at ye for breaking yer promise when I'd done it already. It was – I'd made a right dropkick of meself at the arboretum, and I was ashamed. I wasn't ready to face ye – I was there, that day ye came to the Warren, but I didn't answer when ye called me.'

Aster's thumb began to rub circles in Jack's side, and Jack struggled to focus. Who knew Aster was so tactile? Suddenly, Jack suspected that a lot of Aster's physical distance over the years wasn't exactly because he didn't like physical affection.

'Then ye wandered off, and I thought maybe I'd finally come a gutser and pissed ye off. Took me a few days of trying to find ye – yer Wind is really good at throwing yer scent to all corners of the globe, mate.'

Aster's gaze was knowing, and Jack went a little bit red. 'That time wasn't on purpose,' he said, and arched the _tiniest_ bit into the soft touch of Aster's paw. He was pretty sure Aster didn't even notice, which a) good, that meant he still looked like he was paying attention, and b) bad, because that meant there was still some time to go before he could get his mouth on Aster's again. Having done it once, he couldn't wait to try it again.

'Then the snow fight in Paris, and I thought I'd – well, I asked ye to call me by me name, and ye immediately sniffed out that I don't really let other people do it,' Aster continued obliviously. 'It means a lot to me, that ye do. It – it can remind me of home, sometimes, but it doesn't hurt when ye do it. Especially since it's _ye_ doing it. Wasn't sure if I could deal with a whole night of hearing it out of yer pretty mouth, so I skipped the party. Heard later ye had a run in with one of the dryads, and just about kicked meself that I hadn't been there.'

Jack was trying to keep the red flush of his skin at a reasonable level, what with Aster's words; from the idea that Aster _liked the sound of his name in Jack's voice_ to the fact that he'd just called Jack's mouth pretty, there was a lot to go red over.

'The stargazing party Underhill was almost the last straw,' Aster said, frowning. 'I mean – not to say anything bad about yer mates, Jacko, but I have to say Perri's not me favourite, if she talks to ye like that all the time.'

'Not really,' Jack said, getting his flush under control. 'She's just – blunt. She says exactly what she thinks without taking the time to phrase it nicely. And it's not exactly anything you haven't said before, Tiger Lily.'

Aster made a face. 'Yeah, but ye know how sometimes ye don't know how something sounds until ye hear it out of someone else's gob?' he waited until Jack nodded, then sighed. 'It was like that. It made me angry, at her and at meself, and that ye had to put up with everyone saying these terrible things, just because winter can be inconvenient. Spring can be bloody inconvenient too, with the mud and all, but ye never hear anyone complaining about it.'

'You've clearly never spent a lot of time in New England,' Jack said with a small smile, touched.

Aster made a noise that conveyed exactly what he thought about _that_. 'Lot of bleeding whingers,' he said. 'They can find something to complain about on a sunny day.' He shook his head. 'No, don't get me off topic, I need to say these things.'

'You got it, Oleander,' Jack said, and laughed at Aster's grimace.

'Ye're a pain in me arse,' he huffed, then continued, 'went up to Norway to sulk about the fact that I've been such a tosser for so long, and ran into ye again. And – god, Jack, yer storms are a thing of beauty, I have to tell ye. Made me wish I had me paints on me. Couldn't get it out of me head for days.'

The blush Jack had been fighting earlier returned with a vengeance, and there was no suppressing it now.

'Then ye pulled on me ear, and held me hand, and…' Aster took a deep breath. 'Me ears are very sensitive, Jack, and ye were smiling at me, and it was the hardest thing I've done in yonks, to step away from ye. There was no way _ye_ had meant that the way it felt.'

'What do you mean, _me_?' Jack asked, startled out of his embarrassment into speaking.

'Ye're Jack,' Aster said, as if that was all the answer needed. 'Ye'd never mean it like that.' Then, he gave Jack a small smile, eyes gleaming with amusement and a giddy joy that Jack could feel if he focussed on it. 'Well, so I reckoned, mind ye.'

Jack was a little wordless, so he didn't have a response before Aster continued, 'And then, ye disappeared. Sandy came and asked me if I'd seen ye, and said ye run off the night before and he'd not seen ye for hours and hours, even though ye'd told him that ye'd meet over Istanbul.'

Jack winced; he'd forgotten that entirely in his haste to get away.

'I couldn't find ye, no matter where I looked,' Aster said, voice hushed. 'I could ken ye were somewhere over the ocean, but I couldn't get a fix. So as soon as ye were over land, I followed ye.'

'I didn't cross over any land until I got to Antarctica, though,' Jack said, frowning now.

'I know. I popped up in the middle of a blizzard,' Aster said. 'I could feel ye nearby –'

'Wait, you could feel me?' Jack asked, startled. He'd not been on the ground, had he? But then, Aster had said he could sense him out over the ocean –

'Life, remember?' Aster answered, shrugging. 'Partly why I don't like ye making cracks about being dead. Ye're not.'

'I'm not?' Jack said, flabbergasted. 'I always thought I was.'

'No, ye're not,' Aster repeated, firm. 'That's not the point. I could tell ye were near, but I couldn't figure out where exactly, and I was determined to find ye. Got mixed up in all the snow.' He pressed his nose against Jack's cheek, nuzzling. 'Then, I felt a warm breeze.'

'Wait,' Jack said, struggling back a bit to stare into Aster's eyes. 'Just, wait a second – you? That guy in the snow was you?!'

'Aye, that was me,' Aster said, ears tightening. 'When I realised what was going on, I tried to head in the direction the Wind had come from, but she was pretty insistent that I go to the human town a few clicks away.'

'That was you?' Jack repeated, because suddenly it made sense and god help him _it had been Aster caught in the blizzard_. 'Oh my god, Aster, you could have died! Blizzards in Antarctica are no joke, fuck –'

'It was fair cold,' Aster admitted. 'I would have dropped into a tunnel had it gotten too bad. More importantly,' and now there was a touch of frustration to his gaze, ' _Ye_ almost died.'

'I did not!' Jack protested. 'I just –'

'Nearly froze yerself to death getting someone else to safety,' Aster interrupted hotly, then caught himself, sighing. 'Sorry, Jacko, I keep doing that. If it had been anyone else ye saved, I would have been so proud of ye for saving them, but I can't –' His grip tightened around Jack's waist, wrapping himself around him. 'I can't deal with the thought ye hurt yerself for me,' he said at last, and he dropped his head forward to rest on Jack's shoulder. 'And then I found ye in the snow-bank, and ye looked – god, Jack, I was terrified. I took ye home and put ye in the warmest place I had, but there was nothing I could do. Then we had our row, and things have been so tense since then, I –'

Jack lifted his hands hesitantly and began to rub at Aster's shoulders, unsure if he was allowed. From the way the tension seemed to drain out of him, Jack guessed he was. 'I brought ye along to the rain festival in hopes ye would spend some time with me, but it was still awkward. Ye were distant. Then I got distracted by Chin, and when I realised the time –' He lifted his head, and there was such a look of self-disgust that it had Jack staring. 'I'd meant to ask ye to dance with me,' he said. 'It was tradition, for Pooka, and I messed it up. And ye were _gone_ , Jack. I saw ye when ye came to the Warren, and then right before I had to take care of the googs, and even though ye were standing in front of me, ye were miles away.'

'I'm sorry,' Jack said, tightening his hands on Aster's shoulders. 'God, we're both so dumb.'

'That we are,' Aster agreed, light returning to his eyes. 'But we're going to be fine, I think, now that we've talked about it.' He leaned in, and kissed the corner of Jack's mouth. 'If ye're willing to forgive me being a right arse about all this, that is.'

'It's okay, Aster,' he said, and kissed Aster's nose. 'I get it.'

'I'm still sorry.'

'That's okay,' Jack replied, and kissed his nose again, nipping the tiniest bit with his teeth. 'I still love you.'

Aster started, his green eyes widening. God, he'd really had no idea whatsoever, no idea that every time Jack looked at him it was like the world itself shone a little brighter. 'Never thought I'd hear ye say that,' he said quietly, confirming Jack's thoughts. 'Gave up on that hope yonks ago.'

'That's okay, too,' Jack reassured, smoothing down the fur at Aster's shoulders from his grip. 'I mean, I literally never thought you'd – anything. Ever. I was one hundred percent sure you didn't think about me that way at all. I didn't even know you liked guys! And I thought you'd be so mad when you found out, because I hadn't ever said it outright, and I'd been in love with you for years –'

'What?'

'Uh,' said Jack, and now he was red again. 'Yeeeeeaaaaah. Years. Like, uh, sixty of them, probably? I didn't keep count. A lot.'

'And ye never said anything?'

'I thought you already knew,' Jack admitted. 'And you just didn't say anything because, well, you were happy with friendship.'

'I was,' Aster replied, and nuzzled Jack's nose. 'Still am. Ye'll always be me friend, Jacko.'

'Yeah, but I get to kiss you now, right?' Jack asked.

Aster's eyes flashed. 'Get to?' he repeated thoughtfully, and the smile that spread over his face was sharper than Jack had ever seen – except, he realised, for the expression he'd worn on that day in Norway. 'M afraid I'm going to have to insist on it, Jack. Seems we've got a lot of time to make up for.'

Jack was helpless to stop the laughter in him. 'No time like the present, then,' he suggested through his happy chuckles, and Aster laughed with him as he tilted Jack back onto the stone.

 


	5. Favour

Sandy gave Jack a flat look.

'Okay, okay,' Jack huffed. 'I'll admit it. You were right.'

Sandy waved his hand in an 'aaaaaaand?' gesture.

'And we were both blind.'

The same gesture, more emphatic.

'And he was in love with me.'

'What's with that past tense?' Tooth asked sweetly.

'Oh my god, you guys,' Jack said, exasperated, and put his hands on his hips, his staff nearly knocking over an elf who was tottering by. 'If you two knew all along about the _both_ of us, why didn't you say anything?'

'Some things must be learned on own time!' North boomed from behind him, and Jack groaned. 'It is wonderful, you two at last finding out! We have waited many years!'

'You too, North?' Jack asked weakly. 'Come on, was everyone in on it?'

'Not the Groundhog,' Tooth mused. 'He's just insufferable.'

Sandy signed a check mark, and North nodded in agreement. At least that was something they could all agree on, Jack thought, and crossed his arms.

'Are ye three _still_ giving Frostbite the third degree? I left two hours ago.'

Jack whirled around, lighting up – probably a little literally, from the sudden blue cast to his immediate surroundings. 'Save me!' he said, flying to Aster's side. 'I'm going to freeze them all solid if they don't stop, I swear on everything worth swearing on –'

'Ye can't threaten to freeze _everyone_ solid or it loses the threat,' Aster admonished, but he was still chuckling.

'Worked on the Groundhog,' Jack muttered, and Aster's ears twitched.

'Here, let me show ye,' he said, and schooled his expression into a stern glare. 'North, knock it off, or no blackberry-liqueur chockies for a year.'

North froze, and Tooth twittered in laughter. 'Or sugar-free mint wafers,' Aster added, and she fell still, too. 'Or those little shell-shaped caramels.'

Sandy drooped.

'Wow,' Jack said, eyeing the three of them. 'Really? Candy's how you keep them in line?'

'It'd work on ye, too, if I threatened to stop making those chocky oranges ye love so much,' Aster pointed out, and Jack acknowledged the point with a nod. Those things were amazing.

'I don't do candy, though,' Jack thought aloud. 'I'm kind of without ammo on the whole 'withholding' angle there, Tansy.'

'Ye'll find yer own way,' Aster chuckled, and as their three friends began to bicker over who had received the more dire threat, Aster pressed his nose to Jack's temple, gently kissing the shell of his ear. 'Ye have so far.'

Jack grinned, hooked an arm around Aster's neck, and pulled him down to give him a proper kiss. It was interrupted by North's ear-shattering wolf-whistle, and Jack rolled his eyes before breaking away. 'It's nothing you haven't seen before!' he scolded, Aster's arms still tight around his waist.

'Not with you two!' Tooth scolded right back, hands on her hips but a smile on her lips. 'Aren't your friends allowed to be happy for you?'

'We were having a moment!' Jack argued back. 'And you'd hate it if North cat-called you when you were making out with Durga –'

Tooth sputtered, gone a hilariously outraged red-purple, and Sandy signed a cheerful set of images that essentially translated to 'get a room', which had Jack turning a bit red himself. 'Oh, no you don't, Sandy, I remember you squealed to Tooth –'

An aster, a snowflake, and a knowing squiggle that looked kind of like how Jack imagined smugness would look if reduced to a pictogram.

'One of these days I _am_ going to freeze you solid, Sandman, don't think I won't –'

'We could always leave,' Aster murmured into Jack's hair just as North chuckled loudly and said, 'Enough. Let love-birds have their moment.'

Jack wanted to say something rude to that, but Aster's suggestion had scrambled his brain a bit. He nodded faintly, and Aster opened a tunnel directly beneath them. There was a startled shriek from Tooth as they dropped down, and Jack stuck out his tongue and gave an impish wave behind Aster's back before the tunnel closed over them.

'Thought we'd never get away,' Jack said, and Aster grinned at him, green eyes sparkling. His arms were still around Jack's waist – their favourite place, these days – and Jack set his own arms around Aster's neck, careful not to whack him with his crook. That'd just ruin the mood. 'There a reason you were so ready to go?' he asked, as blandly as he might ask if Aster had seen his staff lying around.

Aster answered with a soft kiss, lips warm over Jack's, and yep, that was a great reason in Jack's book. He let himself be borne backwards, pressed gently to the wall of the tunnel in a spot of bright yellow sunlight, and rolled his eyes when he realised Aster had intentionally put him in the best lighting. 'Your obsession with the aestheticism of things is hilarious, you know that, right?' he said, setting his staff to the side and making himself comfortable. There was an outcropping of rock just wide enough for him to sit on, covered in a thick, soft moss, and he hopped up onto it.

'It's really just yer aestheticism I'm obsessed with,' Aster replied. The difference in height was even more pronounced now, Jack having to tilt his head almost all the way back and Aster to lean way over, and Aster kissed him before licking at his lower lip. That was new. And awesome.

They'd only kissed close-mouthed so far, and nuzzled and cuddled and a million other little affections that Jack hadn't ever even dreamed of getting to share with Aster, much less admitted that he'd wanted. He'd wanted this, though, and licked back before opening his mouth with a giddy feeling in his stomach like flying.

Aster's tongue in his mouth was a flame, an ember against Jack's naturally cooler body temperature, and Jack curled his arms over Aster's shoulders, tugging him down, wanting his weight and his closeness. Aster did him one better, nudging his thighs apart and kneeling between them. This angle was new, too, the way Jack had to lean forward, tilt his head to the left; everything was still new, though. Their traded confessions were only a week or so old, after all (one week, three days, but who was counting? Not Jack, that was for sure.)

For his part, Aster seemed perfectly comfortable, paws spread wide on Jack's back and lips moving, large teeth tugging from time to time on Jack's bottom lip. It sort of made Jack's head light, and he kissed back as well as he was able with what felt like half his brain missing. His fingers were buried in the thick, soft fur at the back of Aster's head, and he brushed them upwards, catching the thin edge of one ear between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and rubbing.

Aster made a sound that must have hurt, but he was arching upwards into Jack's hand, mouth gone slack. Jack grinned; he really hadn't been kidding about his sensitive ears. Jack rubbed again, and Aster's paws tightened in the fabric of his shirt, a soft whimper rising from his throat.

'That good, huh?' Jack asked, and Aster's eyes fluttered open, glazed over and dark.

'Jack, be careful,' he warned hoarsely. 'I'm not too good at control when it comes to ye.'

That? That sounded like something that would be _fun_ to test. 'Doesn't sound like a problem to me,' Jack said, leaning forward to murmur it against Aster's mouth. 'Been kind of waiting for you to break.'

Which was true, and why it was so heady for Aster to all but drag him off the outcropping into his lap, Jack's legs spread wide by his own thighs, and rock up.

'Finally,' Jack sighed, meeting the movement with a rub of his own. 'You take forever, Larkspur.'

Aster didn't answer, not even to complain about the flower name, only pressed their hips together in a full body roll that made Jack's head fall back. Aster's dick was bare at last, jutting hard and pink from a hidden point between his legs, and it looked nothing like Jack had imagined and a million times better because of that. Jack just spread his legs as wide as he could and dropped all of his weight on Aster, letting gravity do her work. He laughed a bit at how Aster's ears were drooping, utterly relaxed, and Aster leaned in, catching Jack's earlobe in his teeth.

'What's so funny?' he asked, voice a low growling whisper that made Jack's throat close up.

'Nothing,' Jack replied when he could, and kissed the side of Aster's head. 'I'm just happy.'

Aster dropped his head lower and nipped at Jack's throat, and rocked forward again. 'Ye've seen nothing yet,' he rumbled, and freaking _hell_. Jack let himself be lifted almost effortlessly back onto the outcropping, and Aster kissed the stark line of his collarbone before leaning back on his haunches, between Jack's spread thighs, and began to tug at Jack's pants.

Clothes had never felt so restrictive in his _existence_ , and Jack had them off in record time, fingers tangling with Aster's now and then in their haste. Aster was just as desperate, because lucky him, he got to run around essentially naked all the time. Which Jack cursed him for at the moment, as the realisation was utterly unfair and did nothing to help his coordination.

Jack had to take a second when he saw the way Aster was looking at him, but it seemed like a mutual thing, because Aster was unmoving. Then, very slowly, he leaned over and nuzzled at Jack's thigh, mouth damp and warm against Jack's chilled skin. Upwards he slid, tongue slipping out to taste here and there along the muscle.

'Wow,' Jack said aloud, and Aster chuckled, the sound vibrating up Jack's skin and straight to his dick. Aster was at just the right height for this, Jack realised, and sucked in a breath at the way Aster's paws curled around his hips.

The first touch of Aster's lips to his dick had Jack's head thumping back against the wall loudly, which meant the touch was brief, as Aster drew away to look at him with some concern.

'Are ye alri–'

'Literally never better,' Jack gasped out, 'can we talk later? Please?'

'Eager?'

'Are you kidding, I never thought this would ever happen. Eager doesn't cover it.'

Aster's eyes darkened at this, as if Jack had said something really smooth and seductive instead of babbling like a bit of an idiot, and the next touch wasn't a touch, but an engulfing.

Aster's mouth closed around him and his paws tugged Jack forward, deeper into his mouth. Jack hissed when the edge of a tooth caught his skin, but in the next second he couldn't care less, because Aster's tongue was – oh, oh, fuck. He hadn't even known someone could _do_ that, pressing in and out of the slit at the tip, god, Jack was completely, utterly screwed. Literally. He'd laugh at the unintentional pun if he'd had the breath to spare.

'Ye're cold all over,' Aster said, pulling back.

'Is that a problem?'

'I'd thought it might be,' Aster hummed, kissing the side of Jack's dick as confidently as if it was Jack's mouth. 'It's really not.'

'That's – uh, that's good,' Jack moaned, and lifted his hips when Aster returned to the (really easy) work of making Jack lose his freaking _mind_.

His hands grasped desperately for something to anchor him, and finally his left hand dug into the moss at his side while his right found Aster's ear.

Aster groaned around Jack's dick, and _whoa_ loud noises felt different when made directly onto sensitive skin. Jack jerked up, deeper into Aster's mouth than he'd thought he could (or should) go, and Aster just _took_ it, swallowing him down and pressing up into Jack's touch like he needed it more than air. Jack obliged shakily, and caressed Aster's ears, tugging, rubbing, gently as he could when he wasn't entirely in control of his own body.

Aster made a strangled noise and buried his face forward into Jack's groin, nose warm against the curls at the base of Jack's dick, and Jack could actually feel the tightness of Aster's throat around him. He curled forward over Aster's head and came with a shout, fingers digging into the base of Aster's ears.

With a deep breath Aster drew away at last, tongue trailing one last time along softening flesh, and to his embarrassment Jack slumped atop him, almost boneless. Beneath him, he could still feel Aster's dick pressed against his stomach, hard and soaked, and he'd never wanted to touch anything so much in his life.

'Jack –' Aster began to say, but lost it to a loud groan when Jack's hand stole between them and gripped him.

'Shh, I got you,' Jack said, leaning back, and now he knelt over Aster's prone form, Aster's dick in his fingers. That was – god, if Jack could come again right then, he would have, just from the idea that this was where they were.

Aster seemed to agree, at least on the potency of their position, because it only took two swipes of Jack's hand to make his spine arch and wetness soak the fur of his abdomen.

Jack let himself collapse atop Aster again, and Aster's arms tiredly came up to settle around his waist.

'God, love,' Aster said into his ear, voice rough, and Jack hummed back helplessly, knowing that it had been _his_ dick in Aster's throat that had made him sound like that. 'Warn a bloke before ye go for the ears, would ye?'

'You weren't kidding about them at _all_ ,' Jack replied, and kissed Aster's throat.

'Was about all I could do not to jump ye in Norway,' Aster agreed. 'I was worried ye'd noticed, when I was staring at ye like I wanted to pin ye to the rock.'

'I had no idea,' Jack said, shaking his head. 'You should have done it. Would've saved us a lot of time.'

'Ye should've told me ye were in love with me years ago,' Aster argued, but there was no heat in it, since he knew as well as Jack that he'd been in love with _Jack_ for just as long. 'Have to admit, though,' he said after a moment spent nuzzling lovingly at Jack's hair. 'It's sort of flattering.'

'What?'

'That ye thought I wasn't in love with ye,' Aster tried to explain. 'That ye thought of me the same way.'

'I'm still not getting it, Trillium,' Jack said after a minute of careful thought, shrugging.

'It's like this, love,' Aster said, clearly trying another tact. 'I never even thought ye might love me. Ye were – untouchable. Ye were _Jack_ , how could ye ever be within me reach? And then, come to find out ye thought the same thing, and the idea that me, the grumpy old Easter Bunny, could mean so much to _ye,_ is just boggling.' He kissed Jack, who had lifted his head to stare at him. 'Ye cared so much about making me happy that for the longest time it didn't even occur to ye to be sad that I wasn't making ye happy, too.'

'You did, though,' Jack protested. 'That's the thing – I was never, not once, dissatisfied with 'just' being your friend, not even at the end. I was happy the way we were.' He poked Aster in the chest. 'Even if this had never happened, you would always be enough to make me happy, E. Aster Bunnymund.'

Aster gazed at him with a soft cast to his gaze that managed to both break and mend Jack's heart at the same time, and his paw tightened on Jack's waist. 'Come on, up,' he said, sitting up and bringing Jack back up to his knees with the movement. 'I've got a bed we could go off and be sappy in.'

'Who gave me a blow-job in the tunnel, again?' Jack teased, refusing to move.

'Better have been just me,' Aster said mock-warningly, and Jack grinned.

'I have a confession to make,' he said, leaning forward and setting his mouth against Aster's. 'I'm seeing someone else. Really tall, grey all over, green eyes? Can't miss him. Prettiest guy in the room.'

Aster laughed and rolled them over, and though Jack suspected he might not be seeing Aster's bed for a few hours yet, that was okay.

The moss was soft, the sunlight warm, and he loved E. Aster Bunnymund.

Better yet? Grass was green, the sky was blue, and Aster loved Jack Frost.

Pretty freaking fantastic, in Jack's opinion.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, how many dates does your oblivious object of affections have to take you on before you start to wise up? Apparently dozens. Who's taking whom on the dates is, of course, up for debate.


End file.
